


Hidden

by JudetheInvincible



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Adopted Children, Adoption, Alcohol, Angst with a Happy Ending, Any ships that are tagged are now things that I'm planning on, BAMF Gwen (Merlin), Brotherly Arthur, Burns, But it all works out alright in the end, Concerned Arthur, Concussions, Conspiracy, Depression, F/F, Gwen might not have political power but she has SWORDS and MUSCLES and a GIRLFRIEND, Hurt Merlin, Implied/Referenced Transphobia, M/M, Magic Reveal, Magical Disguises, Merlin's Magic Revealed, Missing Merlin, Protective Knights, Self-Doubt, Slow Burn, Suspiciously timed head injuries, Torture, Torture Magic, Trans Male Character, burn scars, glamours, if you think anyone is not bi well my friend you are dead wrong, in kind of a weird way, just ignore the timeline and roll with it, listen it gets more and more anachronistic as we go on
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-10
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2018-11-30 10:39:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 26
Words: 153,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11461887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JudetheInvincible/pseuds/JudetheInvincible
Summary: Merlin is a universal constant, a thorn in Arthur's side, a barnacle that he's not sure he wants to get rid of.  Then one morning, he's gone, and Arthur will do anything to find him.His quest is complicated by an orphan who has more to hide than Arthur does, a sorceror who won't stoptalkingto everyone despite the fact no one knows who he is, and the very real possibility of a secret shattering everything he knows.





	1. Vanished

Arthur stretched lazily as he woke, only peripherally curious about the absence of his manservant. He lay in bed for a minute or so, staring at the top of his canopy bed, enveloped in his blankets.

At last, he sat up and looked around irritably.

"Merlin!" he called.

No one replied except for the soft slap of cheap, worn out shoes on the stone floors. Arthur rolled his eyes, knowing that his manservant had probably slept in again and hadn't gotten his breakfast until the very last minute. He was going to be getting a goblet to the head this morning, without a doubt.

The door creaked open timidly.

"Well, come on in, you're late enough already, you idiot." The king got up as the door opened further and a servant stepped inside. But not his servant. He didn't even have a name to put to this child, who was barely as tall as Arthur's chest. "Oh, hello. What's your name?"

The servant looked down at the food tray in their hands, probably too nervous to speak.

Arthur retreated into big brother mode, bending down to look the kid in the eyes. "C'mon then, what's your name?"

"My name is Seta, sire." The servant's voice was so quiet that Arthur nearly didn't catch their name. "I'm a boy, sire."

"Alright then, Seta. Good morning. Any idea where Merlin's gotten off to?" Arthur tore into the sausages on his plate and offered a slice to his manservant’s stand-in.

"No, sire. Cook said he didn't get your breakfast this morning so I was supposed to deliver it." Seta tapped his fingers rhythmically against his hand and looked at the floor.

"Well, it's all happened before. Let's go wake the sleepy oaf, shall we?" Arthur pushed his plate away and led Seta down the hallways to Gaius' rooms.

"Sire, I'm supposed to go back after I bring you breakfast..." The servant trailed off, and Arthur was surprised to realize that he understood with only that to go on. Seta knew he wasn't supposed to question the king but he had instructions from whoever he took orders from to return. Arthur recognized that conflict, and smiled comfortingly at the kid.

"You won't get into trouble if you're with me, kiddo." Seta nodded and followed him quietly. "How old are you, Seta?"

"Twelve, sire. Thirteen next month."

"And when did you come to work here?"

"Last winter. My house was freezing and you couldn’t go more than a couple feet before tripping on someone shivering and coughing. My mom knew someone in the castle, but I don’t know who, and sent me away to live here, where I wouldn’t be as cold." The child tapped his fingers faster and moved his hand towards his mouth as if making to bite it, but he caught himself and put his hand back down.

"And your family?" Arthur asked gently, although the pit in his stomach told him he probably already knew the answer.

Seta choked up and his voice was strangled as he answered.

"They're dead, sire."

Arthur found himself unsure of what to do for the first time that morning. How was he supposed to react? As a king, distant and confident in all things, only rarely seeking assistance? Or as the brotherly figure he had become in the last few minutes, who was comforting and casual?

Arthur kneeled to meet Seta's eyes and placed his hands on the young boy's shoulders.

"I'm very sorry about that. In this castle, I will do my best to keep you alive and well, so that your family can live on through you." Seta flinched as if frightened and Arthur fumbled to recover. "I will make sure that you stay safe here. I'm sorry for your loss."

Arthur tentatively opened his arms to invite a hug, Seta nodded tearfully, and embraced the king of Camelot around the neck, which, while hardly appropriate, was exactly what needed to happen.

"Now come along, kiddo. We've got a buffoon to wake up."

They arrived at Gaius' room and didn't knock, and in so doing so startled the physician nearly out of his wits.

"Oh," Gaius wheezed, clutching his chest. "Sire. To what do I owe this visit?"

"I came to fetch Merlin. Seta here," Arthur looked around for his temporary servant and pulled Seta from behind him. "had to bring me breakfast. It was a wonderful meal, but I'd like my manservant back, please."

"Hello, sir," said Seta shyly. Gaius smiled in return.

"Hello there." The old man straightened and looked Arthur in the eye. "I thought he was with you, sire. He wasn't in bed when I went to wake him up, and I thought that he'd managed to get up early for once."

"As far as I can tell, that day will never come." The king leaned against the wall and laughed, grinning down at Seta when he giggled.

Gaius chuckled and his bones creaked as he lowered himself onto the bench at his dining table. “Well, sire, I can’t argue with that.”

“But where could he possibly have disappeared to?” Arthur pushed off the wall and paced in front of the door. “We’ll have to send out patrols. Whenever Merlin disappears, something awful happens. Either to him or to the kingdom.”

“You must find him soon, Arthur.” The king turned quickly to Gaius. If Gaius was using his name, he must be concerned. “The longer that he’s out there, the more chances he has to get hurt.”

Arthur was struck with a sudden realization and his spine straightened like a pillar. He rushed to the door. "I have to tell the knights. They'll be worried. And they need to know that training is canceled. I have to go."

"Alright then, sire. Do you mind if I ask Seta to stay with me for a while?"

"Not at all, Gaius." Then the monarch whisked through the door and down the hallway to the knights quarters.

"Gwaine," Arthur bellowed as he threw open the door to his room.

"For love of all that's holy, what the shit do you think you're doing here this early, princess?" Gwaine was still at least half-under his blanket, and he blinked blearily at his sovereign.

"Merlin's missing. Get up and help me wake the rest of the knights." Gwaine was on his feet instantly and rifled through his clothes, panicked. Arthur was halfway out the door before he paused and turned back to the drunk. "Only the Round Table knights, Gwaine. I don't know what's going on, and..."

"You don't trust the ones your father knighted." The king nodded and left to rouse the other knights.

Within a few moments, the original six Round Table members were gathered in Arthur's room.

Arthur laid out what he knew and explained the situation to his men. He asked if any of them knew anything, to which they all responded in exactly the way Arthur wished they hadn't. Clearly, no one knew a thing.

"Sire," Leon began. "This has happened before. You never seemed as worried as you do now. What changed?"

"Gaius always had an excuse before. Now, he's clearly just as desperate as were are to find Merlin. Not to mention -" The king cut himself off in the middle of a sentence and his eyes went wide.

"Sire?" Elyan asked nervously.

"God damn it all," replied Arthur. "We need to check Merlin's room. We'll be able to tell if he was abducted or if he ran away of his own accord depending on how much of his belongings are missing. I don't expect we'll need any weapons to search his room, so you can leave any conspicuous things here. We don't want to act like he's under suspicion for a crime, just like we want to double-check." The knights nodded and removed their larger weapons. They hadn't been able to don their armor, given that it usually required at least one servant, if not more. Thus, when they went to inspect the missing manservant's room they would appear to be concerned friends rather than investigators.

The trip back to the physician's quarters was short but tense. The air was heavy no matter how much the knights fanned their faces and every one of them were six feet deep in their own heads.

What could have prompted this? The kingdom had been fairly devoid of activity that required knightly action. Morgana hadn't been seen in over a year, leaving most people to suppose she either really didn't care anymore or she died from the elements during the particularly harsh winter. No one particularly wanted to confirm their hypotheses, no there was no concrete answer, but the peace and quiet was appreciated.

Had Merlin betrayed them? What would he have to betray them with? Of course, therein lay the issue. Merlin knew everything. He accompanied the knights everywhere, sat in on every meeting, worked personally with the king... Who could be a better source of information than the man who washed the king's socks?

Arthur pounded on the door, a far cry from his usual explosion into any room that would (or would not) accommodate him.

It opened to reveal Seta with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows, a grin on his face, and a pestle in his hand.

"Hullo, sire," he greeted, peering around the king to get a better look at the knights.

"Hey there, kiddo. Can you get Gaius for me?" The boy nodded and hurried over to the table where Gaius was waiting on the return of his pestle.

"Do you know that kid, Princess?" asked Gwaine.

"Yeah, he's the one who got me my breakfast this morning. His name's Seta. He's here because his family died and he moved to Camelot last winter." Lancelot wrinkled his forehead and frowned.

"He's just a kid. You hired him?"

"No, the head of staff did. But regardless, I want to make sure he stays safe." Arthur watched Seta and Gaius talk in low tones, a much longer conversation than it needed to be.

Percival rested a hand on Arthur's shoulder. "I understand, sire." The two men exchanged small smiles as Seta returned to the door with Gaius in tow.

"What can I do for you, sire?" The physician squinted at the small entourage in the cramped hallway. "And for the rest of you gentlemen?"

Arthur quickly detailed his reason for visiting and gave a few plausible explanations for it (he wanted to see if anything was taken, he was looking for clues, he just needed to see for himself), all while carefully avoiding anything that might sound like he suspected Merlin of running off in the middle of the night to commit treason.

"Of course." 

After thanking Gaius, the monarch and his escort strode purposefully through the medical room and opened the door to the apprentice's bedroom.

The six men shuffled about in the tiny space, about a third of which was occupied by a bed. Arthur privately doubted Merlin could’ve even fit on it comfortably, but then he remembered his visit to Ealdor. Given Merlin’s prior sleeping arrangements, an ill fitting bed would probably be a huge improvement.

The knights were a bit of a mess in the close quarters. Gwaine and Elyan leaned down at the same time to open a drawer and hit each other's heads, Leon backed up into Lancelot on more than one occasion in under a minute and Percival could seemingly do nothing but be in the way.

“Get your elbow out of my face!” Gwaine snapped.

“And whose fault is it that your face is there in the first place?” Elyan retorted.

“Percival,” Leon said through gritted teeth, “pardon me, but please fucking move.”

“I’m sorry,” Percival replied miserably. His apologies seemed to be the background of their entire activity, until Arthur finally couldn’t stand it anymore.

“Alright, stop moving, the lot of you.” His five knights turned to face him and he pinched the bridge of his nose until it was red. “Obviously we can’t all be in here at once. Let’s take a step back - No, Percival, not literally - and reevaluate how we’re going to get this done.”

After a minute or less of hushed conferral, they agreed that Leon and Arthur would stay in the room, although it could hardly be called a room; it was about the size of Arthur's closet. The rest of the knights would chat up Gaius and Seta, and do their best to discover anything about what could have happened to prompt action like this.

The group split up to their assigned tasks and Arthur shut the door to the room as quietly as he could manage. With a nod to Leon, they set about opening crates and drawers, checking the floorboards, and peering under furniture.

There was one loose floorboard, but nothing was underneath it. Merlin's coin purse was absent, and most professional kidnappers would leave money behind, but if one was a lower grade of criminal, one might be more inclined to make side money. Merlin's clothes were still in their drawer.

Given what he knew, Arthur was inclined towards abduction as the reason for Merlin's disappearance. However, he knew that at some level, the real reason for that conclusion was that he didn't want to believe that his manservant (although that description seemed to fall short of just what exactly Merlin was) would abandon him.

How was he even supposed to approach the whole catastrophe? If it was anyone else, he’d be a royal investigator, chasing down every possibility to find the answer. But it wasn’t anyone else. It was Merlin, and his concern for the scrawny fellow was perhaps too much for Arthur to act as he would otherwise. Above all, Arthur trusted Merlin unconditionally. He might be a clumsy oaf, but Arthur was closer to him than anyone else.

At that very moment, the citadel’s alarm bell sounded, and the knights were off like a shot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yooooo! I did it! Okay, so this had the potential to be complete shit, but thanks to my wonderful beta @wolvaraash, it hopefully isn't (as much)!
> 
> Drop me a comment or kudos if you liked it! This will be continued as soon as possible, but it is my third WIP because I'm incorrigible about that so I'm trying to balance updates.
> 
> You can find @wolvaraash on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr, all under the same name!
> 
> Thank you for reading!


	2. Burned

Merlin paused for breath at the edge of the forest just outside the lower town and he held his hands to his face, only to see them shaking. It was difficult to tell; it was very late and the moon was only a crescent in the sky. He clutched his book to his chest. He had his Sidhe staff with him as well, but the book was the real necessity for spellcasting. He could cast without a focus, but without his spell book, Merlin couldn't learn anything new.

He cursed his shortsightedness as he tried for the third time that evening to put his book in a bag.

"I spend a day planning this and I forget a bag. Typical," he grumbled under his breath. 

He pulled the hood of his cloak over his head and with a muttered enchantment, everything about him became utterly unremarkable. His staff seemed to lose its carving and the crystal morphed into warped wood. His book turned into a tome of dry, out-dated, medicinal history. Merlin himself shed the otherness that made people spare him a second glance.

He rolled his shoulders and moved further into the forest.

As he walked, he thought about what had led up to his decision. When he'd waken up that morning, he hadn't thought that he would have run away from his home of six years in the dead of night.

Arthur had forgotten his birthday.

It sounded silly to say it like that, but it went deeper than just failing to recall a day of the year. Arthur had promised to go for a hike in the Northern part of the Forest of Essetir to celebrate. They'd planned it almost two months in advance, and Arthur hadn't shown up.

After about two hours of waiting at the Northern gate for his king, Merlin had stormed back inside and fumed until Arthur had finally asked him what was the matter. Merlin cringed as he remembered what he'd said. Granted, "said" seemed to imply at least a somewhat neutral or calm connotation. That did not match the tone of the ensuing argument whatsoever, and he barely resisted the urge to run himself straight into a tree to avoid thinking about it.

"'What's the matter?!'" Merlin had shouted. "Arthur, what do you think the matter is? You said you'd be there!"

From there, it had only escalated. Arthur had been angry in return at first, but soon seemed rather embarrassed. Merlin, on the other hand, had exploded, and there really wasn't a way to pick up all the emotions he'd strewn all over the place and shove them back in.

It was never just about his birthday, though. It was because Arthur had made a promise and he hadn't kept it, which seemed to happen a lot recently. He regularly ignored Merlin's advice which had proven time and time again to be sound, not two weeks ago he threw the heaviest goblet Merlin had ever carried at his manservants head and never apologized, he still fussed endlessly about his bathwater's temperature, and when Merlin merely expressed concern over an especially alcohol-filled evening, Arthur had him thrown in the stocks.

That didn't even cover… it.

 

Merlin had been cleaning Arthur's desk after an ink spill, and Arthur had been sitting on his bed, staring a hole through the door. The two of them had been discussing heavy revision of Uther's old laws and the flawed court system, but then Arthur had gotten too excited to write everything down.

"Arthur," he had called to break his friend out of his stupor. "Arthur, I was thinking."

"At this hour? You know that's bad for you," had been the snide reply.

"Very funny. Arthur, I was thinking about magic, and-" Merlin had not gotten the opportunity to finish his sentence, as Arthur had erupted from his seat on the bed and gripped Merlin's shoulders so tight that the slight manservant had worried that they might be dislocated.

"You were WHAT?"

The two men had stared at each other, each with their own fear showing through their wide eyes. Arthur had seemed terrified that Merlin might even be considering magic; not necessarily even its use, but the concept itself. Merlin had worried, and still did worry, that Arthur would hurt him, or see through the six years of half-truths and deceptions, or start interrogating him right then. The fear then, however, had no clear causes. In retrospect, it was all so clear. But then, in the moment...

Merlin had thought he was staring into the face of death itself.

"P-please, Arthur," he'd stammered, shaking. "Let go of me. You're- you're hurting me."

And Arthur had. He'd seemed sorry, and even gone so far as to try to apologize. But the air between them was thick with tension, as they'd walked on eggshells around each other for the rest of the day.

On that afternoon, five days ago, Merlin had come to terms with a truth that he was shocked he hadn't accepted before: Arthur would never let magic back into Camelot, and he would kill Merlin if he found out his friend was a practitioner.

 

Merlin looked up at the sky, which was rapidly growing darker as clouds moved to hide the moon. He crouched next to an oak tree near him and hugged his book to his chest. It was getting rather chilly, and while it would be somewhat early, it could snow if it got much colder.

He yawned involuntarily and snuggled closer into the tree. He hadn't slept yet, and there was probably no better place to take a nap. Sitting down was certainly a mistake. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have realized just how exhausted he was, and how much he really did need rest, no matter what he told himself. But... Just a couple minutes couldn't hurt.

He let his eyes drift closed.

He opened them, and the sun was already peeking through the thick trees that surrounded him.

Cursing, Merlin stood and brushed himself off.

He immediately regretted moving so quickly and had to lean against the tree to recover from the ensuing head rush.

He looked around for his book and coin purse, which he had moved in his sleep. Picking them both up, he sighed.

"What am I doing?" He tied his purse to his belt and groaned. "This was such a terrible idea. I can't just leave Arthur behind. He won't survive the week without me."

Merlin stretched a bit longer than he typically did, trying to postpone his return. It would probably be terribly embarrassing. Arthur would probably make a few jokes at his expense and then not let it go for a week or so. Gaius would be furious with him, that was for sure, and he'd be cleaning out the leech tank again as a punitive chore.

It wouldn't be fun, but he would have to go back. There wasn't a way around it.

He gripped the book in his left hand and held the staff as he would any hiking stick, and then set off back the way he came.

Really, whatever earful he would surely get from Gaius and Arthur was probably exactly what he deserved. Running away like he had, in the middle of the night? What kind of impulsive idiot did that? In a word, Merlin.

The walk back to the citadel seemed much shorter than the trip away from it. Merlin couldn't think of a reason why, but it made sense, in its own incomprehensible way.

As he crested the hill that overlooked the front gate, he watched the city slowly wake up. The market place was already bustling, as it was wont to do. Merlin smiled to himself. How could he have ever thought to leave?

Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of an orange blaze. After all, it wasn't a regular day in Camelot unless something dangerous, and probably magic-related, threatened multiple lives.

Merlin sprinted down the hill and more than once felt like he was about to give into momentum and roll headfirst down the hill, but he righted himself with magic and kept running. The guards at the gate saw him and instinctively put out their spears to scare him off.

Merlin slipped easily through the gate all the same and once he met with the crowd, he disappeared into it. The guards would have no chance of finding him now.

Why hadn't the guards recognized him? He certainly knew them; Anthony and Rob. They were closer than brothers and took care of Rob's son together. Merlin had personally tended to Rob's son when he'd had the flu, and the two city guards had invited him to dinner with them on more than one occasion.

Fire arced from one flammable stall to another ahead of him and Merlin pushed his internal recollection to the back of his mind, where he shoved memories of Freya and Will.

Not the time. Not the time.

"Someone get a bucket of water! Ring the bell! Alert the knights!" he bellowed at the frightened townspeople. When they turned to look at him, there was no recognition of him, even in the eyes of those who he delivered medicine to. If anything, they looked more frightened than before.

"NOW!" he roared, and the townspeople scattered to fetch everything. Merlin dropped his book and staff in a small hole in reality, which was rather draining but was quicker than scrambling for a hidey hole, and sprinted down the now mostly empty street. He stopped just short of the flaming stalls.

"Help me," whimpered someone in the first stall to his right. "My daughter and I, we're trapped under here. Please, anyone!"

Merlin felt his heart race as he waved his hand and gathered the fire into it. He hadn't done magic so publicly in his life, and this was exhilarating, if one ignored the absolute terror that swarmed his entire being.

The blaze was awfully hot, and it hurt to hold it. He fell to his knees trying to make it disappear. Screaming, it finally vanished from his hand and the last thing he saw as he lost consciousness was his burnt hand, and a pair of very familiar boots coming to a stop near his head.

When he came to, Merlin recognized the room around him easily. It was Gaius' patient room, and the old man stood at his mixing table, peering at a book.

"Gaius," Merlin tried to say, failing miserably. The best he could do was make the sound "guh" but it was enough to make his caretaker take notice of him.

"Ah, you're awake." It was Gaius' patient voice, not the one he used with Merlin. It was the voice he used with strangers, but never with Merlin. "I don't know what you were thinking, using magic here like you did. Don't you know that this is Camelot? Don't you know what the Purge is?"

"'Course I do," Merlin replied hoarsely, and suddenly what should have been immediately evident hit him like a landslide. Of course Gaius didn't recognize him, just like Anthony and Rob, just like all the other townsfolk he knew. The glamour was still in place.

Which was probably ridiculously lucky, when he thought about it.

Merlin tried to sit up, but couldn't lift much more than his shoulders off the bed. He finally steeled himself to look at his right hand, which was scorched and he couldn't feel.

It was also bound to the bed.

He felt his heart beat faster again, this time without the thrill of the freedom he had experienced in the market place.

He looked back at Gaius, terrified. For the first time since he regained consciousness, he saw something like emotion in the wrinkles of the old man's face, in how he shifted his hands, in how his eyebrows sloped. Gaius seemed sorry, if that was the right word.

"The king has ordered those," the physician explained apologetically. "He means to put you to death."

"Please, let me out, I didn't hurt anyone!" He felt his brain and its ability to function flee like the villagers had, like Arthur might. What if Gaius told Arthur? What if Lancelot did? If they thought they were saving him from the pyre, they might. But he’d been caught in a ruined market place, exposed as a sorceror. What if Lance thought he had tried to burn the stalls down deliberately? What if Gaius thought that it was better to never have to cover for his mistakes again? They could tell Arthur. Nothing would stop them. If they did that, Arthur would find out, and he would hate him. Not with the vague, general hatred he held for sorcerers as a whole, but with individualized, targeted loathing.

"I know. But if you know of Camelot and the Purge, you ought to know that magic here is punishable by death. The entire thing is out of my hands, and quite frankly, I don't want to stick my neck on the chopping block as well." Gaius turned back to his book and his mortar and left Merlin to stare at his mangled hand.

"What about-" He broke off to take a deep breath. "What about my hand? Will I be able to use it again?"

"Yes, I expect so. My treatment is very effective. Whether or not it will matter, that I cannot answer. And even if you do escape the death penalty, there will be heavy scarring." Merlin panicked in the bed and thought about how he could possibly escape this time, when the door opened.

In walked five fully armed knights and a very angry king.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all! I'm actually really happy that I managed to update so soon, although I regret to admit that this should not be expected. I'm also super proud of this chapter as a whole.
> 
> If you like this, please drop me some comments or kudos! Comments especially are exciting to me and I have been known to do a happy dance in my hallway when I read one, so please, PLEASE send me one, it really makes my day.
> 
> Once again, my lovely beta is @wolvaraash, who is an amazing artist and is present on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading!


	3. Fanning the Flames

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surprising amount of trouble comes from a nameless man, and Arthur tries to hold himself together without much success.

A sorceror. Of course. A sorceror, burning down stalls in the lower town. How could it possibly be a coincidence that the day Merlin disappeared was the day that a sorceror arrived in Camelot?

Arthur looked at the man's charred hand as he lay, unconscious, in the cot. In a sick, twisted way, Arthur was glad that the criminal had suffered in such a manner. He must have taken Merlin, and he had cast fire at the market stalls. He deserved what came to him.

Still, it didn't all add up. A mother and her daughter both testified that the sorceror had actually saved their lives, taking the fire into himself, which was the result of his burnt hand. They hadn't been very adamant about their testimony, but Camelot did have a history of executing anyone even implicated in a case of magic, so the fact that they were willing to testify at all spoke volumes.

Other citizens had come forward tentatively to put forth that they might never had rung the bell if the sorceror hadn't told them to.

But he had to have something to do with Merlin's disappearance. That much was certain.

Whatever he had done with Arthur's manservant, he would have ample time to confess in the time following a minimal recovery. The dungeons, Arthur had decided, were the perfect place for man's extended stay.

Arthur turned on his heel and whisked out of the room, his cloak billowing behind him as he marched through the halls back to the Round Table room.

The five knights who's been with him were already seated at the table, and they looked at him concernedly when he dropped loudly into a chair.

"Sire," Lancelot began. Arthur waved him off.

"When this man regains consciousness, I want to know immediately. Leon, tell Seta to fetch me the moment there are signs that the sorceror wakes." The senior knight bowed and hurried out of the chamber to complete his errand. "Now, from the rest of you, what do you think we should do with him?"

"Well," Percival said thoughtfully, "how much do we really know about him? We saw the tail-end of the market place arson, and no one has ever seen him before in their lives. I think we ought to wait until we can ask for more information."

"Hang on," interrupted Gwaine. "Princess, do you think that this man has something to do with Merlin?"

Arthur sighed. "Yes. Yes, Gwaine, I do." Gwaine threw up his hands exasperatedly in reply.

"If that's the case, interrogate him as soon as possible. Then kill him."

"That seems a bit harsh." Lancelot leaned over the table and knit his hands together. "As Percival said, we don't know much yet. And what exactly is it that makes you suspicious of him? Is it really just the magic?"

"Magic is punishable by death in Camelot," Arthur replied mechanically, and he dully wondered if he still believed in it.

"Yes, but those were Uther's laws." Elyan crossed his arms. "If you still followed those to the letter, you wouldn't have any of us sitting at this table. This man was injured when he reportedly saved the lives of roughly ten people, all at his own risk. We should give him a chance to explain himself."

"He used magic where half the town could see him. He's going to die. There's no way around it. We can't get rid of laws like that overnight, and no one would consider it right now. We just can't do it." Arthur dragged his hand down his face. "He's going to die, and that's the only outcome."

He scanned the faces of his knights, none of whom looked very pleased with what was going on. Lancelot to his left was frowning at him disapprovingly, which Arthur thought was rather unfair. He was just... Following the law. As he always did. Percival was staring at his right hand, clenching and unclenching it with something that looked like dread. It took Arthur a second to realize he was thinking of the sorceror's hand, and how much it must have hurt. He moved on quickly, and was met with a fury that would follow him to his nightmares on Gwaine's face.

Elyan was unique among them in that Arthur couldn't, for the life of him, begin to tell what he was thinking. He was staring at the wall across from him, resting his head on his fist.

The five of them sat in silence until Leon returned, but the only thing that was said then was that the sorceror was still completely out of it.

They sat at the Round Table and waited for Seta to come careening into the room.

Arthur stared at the ceiling, cursing his ignorance. What did the man want? Why would he even come to Camelot if he was a sorceror, other than to kill the king?

What could he have done with Merlin?

Every train of thought led back to Merlin and his unexplained absence. Why kidnap him? Then again, why not? He was as good as anyone to interrogate for intimate knowledge of the Castle and its king. And if that was what he was captured for, what reason could there possibly be to keep him alive?

Just then, the door creaked open and a familiar young face poked in.

"He's coming to, my lords," Seta told them softly.

Arthur shot up from his seat and the rest of his knights followed without hesitation. They streamed out from the council chambers, pausing only once.

"Stay here, Seta." Arthur patted the child's shoulder.

"Sire, I--"

"Stay. Here."

"Yes, sire."

Arthur doubted that the boy would've actually disobeyed or objected, but better safe than sorry.

The knights stormed through the castle to the physician's chambers. Arthur threw open the door and watched as the sorceror's eyes widened in fear at his entrance.

"What have you done with him?! Tell me what you've done with Merlin!" The sorceror looked terrified and like he'd very much like to back away from the king, who was less than a foot away from him. Arthur glanced at the sorceror’s hands, and was pleased to see that he was still strapped to the table.

"Tell me!" he roared.

"I don't know wuh-" The man's voice was barely more than a croak, and he paused to cough. "What you're talking about."

"Don't," Arthur grabbed the man's shirt collar, "lie to me."

The sorceror's eyes grew flinty and his mouth thinned. "I'm not."

"Then why are you in Camelot, sorceror?" Arthur let go and the man's head hit the bed with a noise that sounded more painful than he expected.

"I was," the man groaned in the middle of his sentence and continued hoarsely, "passing through the woods. I saw fire in the market. I wanted to help."

Arthur sighed exasperatedly.

"Surely you know of the ban on magic here?" The man found that funny somehow and chuckled softly. "What."

"I'm well aware, your Majesty. All of my kind is aware."

"In that case, sorceror, why risk your life here?" The king met his eyes with those of his prisoner. The damned man seemed so unbearably calm in the face of someone who would put him to death.

"There were people in danger. Surely you understand." Arthur frowned and stepped closer.

"Don't try and act like you and I are at all similar. We're completely different, you godforsaken sorceror." The very air seemed still, and the knights behind Arthur did their best not to move. "Do you have a name? I can't very well keep calling you sorceror."

The man looked away, the best show of protest he seemed capable of.

"No."

"Your name is 'No?'"

"No, I mean I don't have one."

"Everyone has a name, you fool. What's yours?"

"I told you that I haven't got one, you royal pain in the ass." Arthur started. If there was anything to remember about Merlin and Arthur's first encounter with him, it was probably his clever line following his (first) release from the dungeons.

"You do know something!"

"And where in Hell did you get that idea?" The sorceror turned back to him, incensed.

Arthur tightened his jaw and gestured curtly to his knights as he swept out of the room. They followed him wordlessly back to his room, all looking on, concerned, when he dropped morosely into a chair.

"Sire, it's quite possible that it's a coincidence," said Leon, shifting his weight back and forth.

"That what's a coincidence, Leon? That this man arrived in Camelot the same day that Merlin has gone missing, or that he insulted me in almost the same way Merlin did the second day he was here?"

"Both." Elyan and Percival spoke simultaneously and looked at each other, embarrassed.

"If he kidnapped Merlin, why would he come back to Camelot and endanger himself? It doesn't make sense," Elyan explained to the king calmly.

"Not to mention," added Gwaine, "lots of people might call you a royal pain in the ass. Not that I would ever, princess." Arthur glared at him, and he gave a cheeky smirk in response.

"Well, maybe he forgot something. Or being captured is part of his plan."

"In that case, Arthur, how does any of this relate to Merlin disappearing?" Lancelot asked. "This man took no secret passageway into the city, he targeted no one, and he saved plenty."

"We don't know that."

"Yes, we do. The guards confirmed that they saw him running into the city. And every peasant we've asked has said that the sorceror saved them, not that he attacked them."

"That’s exactly the problem, Lancelot! He’s a SORCEROR!" The knights shuffled away, startled at the king's bellow. "Sorcery is a disease that has poisoned our kingdom. He and his kind have brought nothing but pain and terror to us. I will not put the people of Camelot in danger!"

The knights looked at each other and seemed to come to a wordless consensus.

"Yes, sire," Elyan said, bowing. The knights bowed just deeply enough to be respectful, and filed out through the door until only Lancelot remained.

"Arthur, you can't just kill him. If he hurt someone, try him for that, but not just for sorcery!"

"Lancelot, out. My decision is final." The knight pressed his lips together but said nothing. When Arthur made no move to say anything else, he turned and left, the door slamming shut behind him.

Arthur pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes. He knew that he'd have to talk to the nameless sorceror; there was no way around it. But he didn't know if he'd be able to keep his head. Regardless, it would be good to hear the man's words firsthand. Maybe he could send Gwaine, no, he wasn't any more stable than Arthur was. Percival? Maybe. Perhaps Seta...

No.

Seta. Where was he? Still in the council room? He had to stay away from the sorceror. He couldn't get hurt.

Terrified, Arthur sprinted out of the room and raced to the council chamber. Seta had to be in there, he had to be.

He wasn't.

Arthur scrambled for an idea of where his diminutive temporary servant could have run off to. He cursed, praying to whoever might be listening that Seta knew to stay away from there.

Before he knew it, Arthur skidded to a stop outside Gaius' chambers again. He wished that he hadn't visited this door four times already. He probably would return later, and five visits to the physician were already far too many in Arthur's book.

He opened the door and felt his heart skip a beat when he saw Seta talking animatedly to the nameless murderer. Seta was clearly enjoying himself; he hands flew through the air, illustrating his point even further than his tone could. The sorceror nodded along, and he was smiling guilelessly. 

Arthur cleared his throat, and both Seta and the sorceror turned to look at him quicker than he would have thought possible. Seta looked positively overjoyed to see him; the sorceror looked stuck somewhere between utterly horrified and annoyed by the interruption. Arthur chose to ignore the man for as long as he possibly could.

"Seta, I need to talk to you."

"Yes, sire!" chirped Seta as he hopped off the stool he was sitting on.

"We were talking, Arthur," grumbled the sorceror. "Seta was in the middle of explaining how he'd made a small wagon that worked with cranks instead of horses. I imagine he might like to continue."

Arthur made a point of not replying.

"It's okay, sir, I can come back later!" Seta waved cheerfully as Arthur pulled him from the room.

The two of them walked farther down the hallway to somewhere a bit wider so that they could talk comfortably. Arthur knelt and looked up at Seta, a sympathetic look on his face. The boy immediately knew that something was wrong.

"Sire?" he asked.

"Seta, I don't want you to visit that man. He's a sorceror, and could hurt you. I don't want anything to happen to you, okay?" Arthur couldn't remember anyone speaking to him like this in his childhood, with such naked concern in their voice. It had only been orders with Uther, and Gaius could hardly address him by his first name.

"But he's nice, sire. He didn't try to hurt me when I talked to him."

Arthur closed his eyes and inhaled sharply, determined not to raise his voice.

"Seta, have you met a sorceror before?"

"No, sire," Seta replied, and Arthur heard the subtle question about where precisely this was going.

"Most sorcerors are too clever to attack you outright. Most of them will try to trick you first. Try to make you sympathize with them and then they'll betray you. I want you to stay safe, and right now that means staying away from that man. Can you do that for me?" Seta nodded, and he looked a bit frightened, as if some of his world had just crumbled. It probably had. Arthur hugged him close and wondered how he'd managed to worm himself into his heart in little more than a morning.

"But, sire, what if I need to talk to Gaius?" Arthur leaned back, worried.

"Do you need to talk to Gaius a lot?"

"No!" Arthur blinked at the intensity of Seta's reply. "No, sire, but what if I do?"

"The sorceror won't be there for much longer. Can you stay out of Gaius' quarters for another two days, at the most?"

"I think so, sire. I wish I didn't have to, though. I do like him." Seta rubbed his arm nervously, as if he'd just confessed something huge and dangerous. Arthur wrinkled his forehead.

"You like Gaius?"

"Um." Seta looked away. "Yeah, but that's not who I meant. I like the man with the burnt hand. He's kind."

Arthur sighed.

"I know, kiddo. I know, but we don't know enough about him to know that you're safe with him. Please stay safe."

"You mean by not talking with him again." Seta sounded a bit accusing. Arthur tried not to think about it and how attached to the sorceror Seta seemed after only a quarter of an hour with him.

"Yes, kiddo. That's exactly what I mean."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaand we're done! This is slightly longer than the other ones, but not by much. I was having difficulty finding an end point. Hopefully you enjoyed it and think it worthy of kudos/comments, they really make my day!
> 
> Once again so much credit goes to my amazing beta, whose name you probably already have burned into your brains but I'm saying it again anyway. @wolvaraash is an amazing artist and friend of mine who posts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Tumblr, all under the same name for ease of discovery. Go check her stuff out if you can!
> 
> Thank you for reading and I'll try to update soon!


	4. Tipping Point

Seta waved and was yanked from the room by an irritated Arthur. Merlin glared at the door that locked behind the two of them, and thought about the boy. 

 

He was about half Merlin's age, and he’d already had more than his fair share of grief. He'd told Merlin about his sister and something they had built a year ago. His sister, Agatha, had christened it the Timfy Wagon because the only thing they carried in was a cat named Timothy. Agatha had not been able to pronounce his name, which Merlin thought was adorable, so they had called him "Timfy" ever since.

Merlin tried to forgo thinking about how Seta had looked at the floor when he started talking about his sister.

He tried to forget how Seta had told him that his cat was all he had of his family, though not in so many words.

He tried to focus instead on how Seta had lit up when Merlin had advised him to set Timfy loose in the kitchen, if only to terrorize the cook, or how he would go far with his Timfy Wagon if he could make it bigger.

 

Merlin sighed and let his mind wander as he gazed vacantly at the ceiling. He didn't know why he was staying here, waiting to be killed. His magic wasn't trapped or bound in any way, only his hands. He had already made the decision not to reveal himself, which would probably only make everything worse.

So why was he here? To make a political statement? Maybe it was guilt. He had left, and he didn't want to leave in the middle of the night without warning again. Not that his friends would care now, he was a stranger to them.

Merlin managed to sigh, yawn, and sneeze all at once, which he took as a sign that he ought to at least rest his eyes a bit.

He felt, at some foggy point at a time he couldn’t perceive, a brief feeling of weightlessness and then a rough drop back onto wood. He blinked, and tried to move more, but whatever was happening was not under his own power. He gave into its clear futility and fell back asleep.

He didn't feel like he had slept at all. He woke in the annoyingly familiar dungeons rather than the room he'd fallen asleep in. That, of course, didn't really cover everything he attached to Gaius' medical room. But he couldn't fit everything in a sentence, not without losing any coherence he might have obtained.

He looked at his hands.

They were unbound, which felt a bit strange, but he could hardly bear to look at his right forearm.

Maybe he could heal himself. He'd never had a knack for healing magic, but if he needed to do that so he could use his hand again... Well, there really wasn't any other choice.

He pulled his hand into his lap and considered exactly what his next course of action would be. He didn't know any spells off the top of his head to cure burns, but he didn't want to summon his book out of the tear to look one up. For one, it would make him rather tired, and he wasn't sure how much he could take. As a second reason, he didn't know if it might be more trouble that it was worth in the way of identification. Gaius might come down to the dungeons and see him, and if he told Arthur...

Merlin didn't know what might happen if Arthur found out that Merlin had been lying to him for years. It seemed unlikely that he'd be willing to overlook the magic, either.

If Gaius, or anyone else, as a matter of fact, exposed him to Arthur, it seemed entirely likely that Merlin's punishment would be far more emotionally damaging than it was already, if not closer to physical torture than to execution.

Arthur would hate him.

It would be far better to let Arthur wonder where he'd gotten to than to destroy him with the answer.

All in all, summoning the book was not an option.

Perhaps he could summon his magic to him and simply direct it towards his goal. It was as good a plan as any.

He took a deep breath in and out, and closed his eyes to calm himself. He felt something surge within him and he opened his eyes to his left hand glowing a cool blue.

"Oh thank the goddess."

"The goddess?"

Merlin jumped and winced as his useless hand banged to the ground. His heart raced and he grimaced as he felt his careful work undo itself. The magic surrounding his hand evaporated and he suddenly felt very nervous.

He hesitated.

"Yes..."

"I assume she's part of the Old Religion?" Arthur said, and Merlin nodded warily. "You pray to her?"

"Is there anyone else to pray to?"

"Does she listen?"

"Does it matter?"

"Stop answering me with more questions."

"You started it," Merlin said, grinning. "And it comes naturally to me. I answered you either way; you always knew what I was saying."

"What? No, you started it." Merlin opened his mouth to object, but Arthur plowed on, not giving him even the smallest chance. "And that's not what I came down here to talk about. I have questions. Lots of them, in fact, and you're going to answer them for me. Do we understand each other?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful. First," Arthur inhaled deeply, and Merlin recognized that he was probably going to start yelling. He moved backwards as far as he could. "What the HELL is your game?!"

Merlin thought of what to say to that and came up empty.

"Well? What are you playing at?"

"I like Alquerques, although I used to play dice for pocket money." If Merlin had learned anything in his life, it was that when one was in trouble with the authorities, it was best to play dumb and pretend not to understand the question.

"That's not what I meant, and you know that." Arthur stepped closer to the bars and Merlin tried to hide his burned hand. It was a sign of vulnerability, a button to press. Arthur would go for it, if he thought that a low blow was the right one.

"But I don't have anything that I'm playing at, and whenever I tell you that, you ignore it. Will you stop asking if I give you the answer you want? That would be lying, but you clearly don't want to hear the truth." Merlin leaned his head to the side and smiled, but he couldn't find any joy in what he was saying. Maybe things would be different if he hated Arthur, but he doubted he could ever do that. Kilgarrah certainly hadn't thought he could. "Then again, perhaps the truth is simply what you want to believe. In which case, your truth is clearly that I am a revolutionary here to undermine your reign through some plot that you haven't told me about yet."

"That's exactly what I'm here to ask about."

The two men stared at each other for nearly a minute, each one waiting patiently for the other to speak.

"What exactly are you here to ask about?" asked Merlin, resting his head on his knee.

"Merlin," Arthur clarified, and Merlin jumped.

It wasn't so much a jump as it was a startled twitch, and it was not unlike the movement he made when someone made to punch him. That was what it was: a flinch. Fear.

"You know something." Arthur was almost pressing his face through the bars now. "What do you know?"

"Nothing."

"You're lying."

"I'm not. But I'm starting to regain feeling in my hand," Merlin said, lying on both counts. "It hurts a lot."

"Really? Let's see if I can't help you recall what you know." Arthur opened the cell door and Merlin tried to back up further but he already had his back to the wall.

"I haven't forgotten anything, I just don't know what you're talking about." Arthur wouldn't hurt him, would he? He'd seen the knights use this technique before: They'd walk into the cell and beat up the prisoners inside. It made the prisoners feel more helpless than it did actually hurt them, but it was frighteningly effective. Merlin had to find a way out, any way out, no matter how underhanded it would end up being.

Arthur took a slow step towards Merlin, and the warlock tried not to react when he curled his hand into a fist.

"So you're just going to beat me in my cell, then? When I have a hand I can't even use? That's not very noble of you. Not very kingly." Arthur gaped, and Merlin knew that it was hardly fair of him to take advantage of an insecurity that Arthur had told him in confidence, but he needed to pour his magic into healing a burn, and healing a burn as well as bruises and broken bones would just be a hassle.

"Who are you to judge me?" snapped the king.

"A fresh pair of eyes," Merlin replied.

"I'm your king, you should show me some respect."

"I suspect that it doesn't really matter what I do, you'll have me executed anyways. Not much I can do about that."

"You don't think very much of me, do you?" Arthur leaned into the wall of the cell, and Merlin watched him carefully.

"On the contrary, I think very highly of you. But you aren't doing yourself any favors, with the way you're acting. Kicking a man while he's down? Hardly something that will reflect well on you." Merlin brushed some hair out of his face, only to have it fall back. It had been doing this for a few weeks now, but he hadn't had the time to cut it.

"You have magic. That hardly reflects well on you," Arthur retorted waspishly.

"And that relates to what we're talking about how?"

Arthur didn't seem to have an answer to that, and looked away. Merlin decided to carry on trying to heal his hand as if he wasn't there, and he called his magic to the surface again and moved his hand back and forth over the burns.

"What are you doing?!" Arthur said, alarmed.

The magic flickered and died.

"Dammit!" shouted Merlin, the closest thing to a reply he had in his mind.

"What was that? I thought you had to say something to cast magic!" Arthur pushed himself off the wall and started closing in on Merlin again.

"I was trying to undo some of the damage. It's not easy, sire," he scowled, sarcasm dripping through his voice, "and I'd love it if you would interrupt me again. Thanks ever so much."

"But- but- I mean it's- It's illegal!" Arthur spluttered.

"You can't exactly sentence me to death twice, now can you. I'm hardly worried about the consequences of my actions at this point. So calm down, and if you don't have any other questions for me, why don't you just leave me to get my hand back in working order?" Merlin hunched over his hand again, and assumed that Arthur would be leaving.

He didn't.

"Why aren't you getting angry at me? Why are you just..." The king shifted, but made no move for the door. "Just sitting there?"

"Well," Merlin began, sounding very reasonable. He didn't really have an answer, and let it hang in the air for a bit too long before he thought of what was really keeping him there. If he was being honest. "There's not much of a point in doing anything else, is there?"

Arthur looked a bit confused. Merlin tried not to look at him, and went back to what he'd been trying to do in the first place.

He heard the crunch of straw underfoot and the creak of the door swinging shut. The clang of the lock falling into place.

He didn't know what to think of the finality of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This... Did not go where I thought it was going to go. It ended up not pushing the plot forward as much as I intended it to. Oh well. More angst coming up in the next chapter!
> 
> As per usual, thanks to my wonderful beta @wolvaraash who helped me make this okay to be seen in public. We had a fun little debate on grammar (which I won, yay) and she really helped make some of the scenes more impactful. You can find her on Tumblr, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter!
> 
> Thank you for reading! Drop me some kudos or comments if you liked it, and I'll try to update soon!


	5. Face Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's execution time.

Arthur pounded his way through the streets to the stables, stopping only once to order a servant to send his knights along.

He didn't want to think about the sorceror he had sitting in his dungeons. He didn't want to think about what he didn't know. He didn't want to think about how his prisoner seemed to know so much more than he should've.

He came to his horse and stroked its nose gently.

"Stablehand," he snapped, "saddle my horse for me. I want him ready to go as soon as possible. And send someone for my hunting equipment."

"Yes, sire," mumbled the boy. Arthur didn't even spare him a second glance.

He ambled out the door and leaned against the stable wall, waiting for his knights to show up, before he decided that leaning against a wall was hardly kingly. It was behavior that fit an adolescent, but never a king in his late twenties. That would be ridiculous.

Arthur folded his arms and leaned his head forward to try and get a better look at whoever was sprinting towards him.

Some foolish, hopeful part of his brain was praying that it was Merlin. He hated optimism. It always made the inevitable feel so much worse than it had to. He'd thought he'd grown out of it years ago.

It wasn't, of course, Merlin who finally came into clear view.

It was Gwaine, stumbling and tripping over himself down the street as fast as he seemed able. His cloak was nowhere to be seen and his plate armor was hanging off his shoulders. His gloves were stuffed in his belt. His sword was being unspeakably damaged by how much it was banging on the ground, given that the sheath was dragging on the cobblestones.

"The hell happened to you?" Arthur asked, sounding a bit more amused that concerned.

"Tavern," grunted Gwaine in reply.

"Well, get yourself together and as sober as you can. We're leaving on a hunt soon, and I don't want you falling off your horse."

"Princess, I have already have."

Arthur snorted and covered his mouth, gesturing towards the stable. Gwaine wobbled on inside, leaving Arthur outside to snicker.

The other four knights came billowing regally around the corner of a different street. Arthur was glad to see that all of them seemed to be in possession of their armor and weapons.

Arthur put up his hand in greeting.

"Good to see you're all better off than Gwaine."

"You're setting a pretty low bar, Arthur," snarked Elyan.

"What happened to Gwaine?" Percival asked, concerned.

"He's just a bit drunk, nothing new." Arthur replied dismissively.

The more sober knights nodded in an unsettling unison. Leon motioned towards the stable in a sort of "after you" kind of way, and Arthur led them all inside to walk in on a snoring Gwaine.

Lancelot poked him, none too gently, in the ribs with his boot.

"Up and at 'em!" Arthur shouted, parroting his favorite absentee manservant. He justified such an inappropriately affectionate thought by reminding himself that Merlin was his only absentee manservant, and that it was hardly something special.

"That's Merlin's line," Gwaine groaned.

"I know. We're going to go look for him, and you need to get a grip. We are going to find him, that sorceror scum is going to get what he deserves, and we'll have Merlin back. Now get your armor on, fix your belt, find your cloak, and let's get going." Arthur waved to Percival, who seemed to magically understand that he was supposed to help their drunk compatriot to get ready.

Arthur stomped off to his horse and grumbled to him softly. With Merlin gone, who else was there to vent to?

Maybe that was how the sorceror felt about his "goddess."

Then he cursed himself for trying to sympathize with a known criminal who'd taken Merlin.

It took a miraculously short amount of time to fix Gwaine up enough to mount their horses, and they rode out to the gate that their current high-profile prisoner had come sprinting into just a few days ago.

They passed through the market avenue that the sorceror had been arrested in, and to say that Arthur was confused by the lack of carnage would be a criminal understatement. There were some scorch marks on the cobblestones and the stench of burning wood and food in the air, but the stalls were all, for the most part, intact. For a moment, there was an almost tangible feeling of otherworldliness, but it was gone as soon as it appeared.

As Arthur rode by one of the faceless guards of the lower town, he beckoned to him.

"Guard!"

The nondescript little man hurried to Arthur's horse.

"Yes, sire?"

"I want a pyre fully prepared by the time I return. You have, I expect, until early this evening. We'll have a burning tonight." Arthur turned to look back at the castle- his castle- where he'd burn the man who had dared to lay a hand on Merlin. By the time the day was out, he'd have Merlin back there. He'd be safe by his side.

"Yes, sire!" The man scurried off to attend to his errand, and Arthur moved on, giving little thought to how Lancelot refused to look at him.

There was no clear path where the sorceror had supposedly appeared from, only a ravine. It wasn't too steep, but it was steep enough that the six of them thought it wise to lead their horses up it rather than ride them up.

They found the sorceror's footprints easily enough, and followed them as well as they could. Sometimes they faded out, usually when the knights were beginning to feel that it was easy to spot them. However, as soon as they made an effort to find them again, they appeared in the grass as clear as day. Arthur supposed that it was some sorcery that played with their perception of the whole mess, but he wasn't sure how much he cared.

Eventually, they arrived at a tree. It was old, and had a thick canopy overhead, but was otherwise unremarkable.

"Princess," called Gwaine, pointing near to something near the roots on the far side of the tree. "Princess, come look at this."

Arthur crouched next to his drunkard of a knight, and took casual stock of how Gwaine was steadying himself against the tree as if his life depended on it. He decided it was merely typical behavior of Gwaine, and shifted his attention to whatever had so evidently captured Gwaine's attention.

"It looks like there was a..." Arthur stared at the rectangular depression in the undergrowth and thought of what could have made it. "Maybe a box? Or a rock. Must've been awfully heavy, whatever it was."

"I'd bet that it was a book."

Arthur swiveled to stare at Percival, who seemed almost as tall as Camelot's towers at the angle Arthur was at.

"Why a book?"

"Well, most sorcerors learn either from other sorcerors or out of a book. It's really quite a common practice, and if our sorceror in question was traveling alone, it's quite possible too." The huge knight shifted his feet a bit awkwardly, probably knowing that even being in possession of such knowledge would be incriminating under Uther's reign. "Also, look at it. It's, um, book shaped and everything. And why would he be carrying a rock?"

"No matter what he was carrying," interjected Elyan, "shouldn't we have seen it? Is his stuff still around here, somewhere? Because I don't know about the rest of you, but I didn't see him lugging around a big boxy thing as he passed out in the market."

"You're right," Arthur agreed. "It must still be around here somewhere. Fan out and look for it. I want to know what he was traveling with, and, if we're really lucky, why he was traveling with it."

His men didn't move immediately, so he shooed them off exasperatedly.

Arthur checked around the immediate area surrounding the tree, hoping for some small thing to be revealed to him that would make everything clear. The grass was flattened at the roots in what Arthur guessed was the shape someone sleeping in a fetal position would be in. The sorceror must have been traveling for a while, and then decided that it was as good as anywhere to kip for a few hours. Hopefully he'd left something behind.

There didn't seem to be much to see, and the overcast sky wasn't helping at all. Arthur didn't want to ruin any tracks that the sorceror had left behind. Maybe they would be able to find out where he came from. Maybe they could learn his name. Maybe-

What was that?

Arthur lifted his boot and looked curiously at the little disc of gold he'd stepped on.

He picked up the coin and realized that it was Camelot currency, of all things. Which didn't make any sense. Why would a magic user live in probably the most ardent anti-magic kingdom? What sane person would put themselves at risk like that? Then again, it was a completely valid argument that most sorcerors weren't sane, and Arthur could imagine that the sorceror might have been private about his illegal practices.

"Hey, you lot! Get over here, I found something!"

Arthur couldn't hear any distinct responses to his shout, but he could hear someone crash to the ground and make some sort of strangled, overjoyed screech. He could hear someone yell something that sounded concerned, and a couple seconds later he could see Percival sprinting to the oak tree with Gwaine riding on his back.

"Today's really not your day, is it Gwaine?" Arthur teased.

"Shut up."

"Arthur, I think he has a concussion. The idiot thought it would be a good idea to climb a tree. He fell out, but I can't tell if he just had the wind knocked out of him or if something else happened," said Percival as he tried to put Gwaine down.

"Alright. We'll take him to Gaius when we get back."

"I don't think we should wait that long. That'll be, what, a few hours? I can get him back in a quarter of an hour," Percival contradicted carefully.

"No," groaned Gwaine. "I want to stay and look for Merlin."

Percival looked to Arthur desperately, as if hoping that he would use his authority to order Gwaine back to a physician. Arthur sighed.

"It's up to Gwaine."

Percival and Arthur both turned to him simultaneously, and Arthur immediately regretted leaving it up to the discretion of someone with a potential concussion and probably illegal levels of alcohol in his system.

"I'm staying."

"Of course you are," muttered Percival.

At that moment, Lancelot burst into the clearing and demanded to know what Arthur had found. Arthur held up a hand, indicating that they would wait for the other knights to arrive, which they did after a minute or so.

"I found this," Arthur said as he presented the coin to them in his open palm.

"You think this belongs to the sorceror?" asked Elyan, a bit skeptically.

"You think it doesn't?" grumbled Arthur, somewhat rhetorically.

"Well, it just seems to me like someone else could have dropped it." Elyan crossed his arms and shrugged. "We aren't too far out from the lower town here. Someone else could have been walking around out here. Hell, isn't this not too far from where Gaius sends Merlin to look for herbs sometimes?"

Lancelot shook his head.

"Sure, but do you see any indication of someone else sleeping out here? It doesn't seem like much of a leap. We're fairly certain that the sorceror took a nap here, and you think that it's just happenstance that there's a coin within five feet?"

"More than just any coin," Arthur interrupted. "This coin is from Camelot, and it's one from the beginning of my own reign. Look."

The knights leaned closer to look it over.

"So he must've visited recently or he lives in Camelot. Either way, not the smartest move for someone like him," Leon mused indifferently.

"For the record," Elyan said quietly, "I'm not saying that we should discount this. I'm just saying that we should take it with a grain of salt. Being critical of evidence isn't a bad thing."

"Of course not, Elyan," replied Arthur at a similar volume.

An uncomfortable silence descended over the knights. Arthur slipped the coin into his pocket and surveyed the clearing awkwardly.

He was fairly sure that any second now, a cricket would start chirping just to make a point.

"Alright," Leon said loudly, clapping Elyan on the back so hard that he almost fell onto his face before catching himself.

"Right, yes," Arthur agreed, even though there really wasn't anything he was agreeing to. "Um, we should go find the rest of the tracks."

His resolution was met with a cacophonous chorus of "yes, yes" and "of course" and "oh shit that's what we were doing".

They wandered around a bit, and finally found the footprints that led away from the sorceror's nap spot. They mounted their horses again, prepared to ride far away, maybe even to the border. The footprints did not, strangely enough, continue the tracks that they had followed into the woods, and instead turned to the side, and seemed to run parallel to where the citadel probably was. After a few yards, they turned again, making it seem inevitable that it would intersect with Camelot.

"Is this going where I think it's going?" Elyan asked after a few minutes of riding.

"If you think it's going back to Camelot, I'm willing to bet that it is," Gwaine slurred from half off his horse.

Leon clicked to his horse and wordlessly shoved Gwaine back into his saddle.

They continued to follow the trail all the way back to the grate that Arthur remembered smuggling the druid boy through. It had been blown out of the wall by no force created by people.

"I've seen enough," Arthur scowled.

They rode their horses back to the stables, occasionally taking turns shoving Gwaine back into his seat. Upon their arrival, they turned their horsees over to the stable hands who promptly whisked them off for a some food, maybe a carrot or two, and a nice wash. The sun was low in the sky and Arthur guessed that it would be a bit longer until sunset. They stormed into the castle and Arthur was pleased to see a pyre standing boldly in the square, just waiting to burn.

The other knights peeled off to go to the armory, and Arthur headed to his room to write a short speech for the execution.

He stared unseeingly at the blank sheet of parchment, his quill pen poised to start running across the page, but nothing came to mind.

"For the protection of the people... No," he muttered to himself. "Sorcery is a disease that... That's not right either."

He heard a knock at his door and he called for them to enter. The door creaked open and he looked up to see Gwenivere peeking in.

"Arthur, are you alright?" She took a few steps, the bare minimum to be completely inside, and she shut the door softly.

"Yeah, yeah," he replied, scratching the back of his head and getting ink all over his hair. "I'm fine. I'm just having a hell of a time trying to write a speech for this evening. Merlin usually writes things for me."

She paused, looking at the floor.

"Please don't do it," Gwen blurted desperately.

"What?" Arthur leaned back in his chair, confused.

"Please don't kill him," she implored.

"I've already made up my mind. He broke the law. I can't just let him go, it would undermine the law."

She bit her lip and wrung her hands nervously.

"I- I know."

Arthur knit his brow together and tapped his fingers on his desk noiselessly before spreading his hands in a silent question.

"Then why did you ask?"

  
She gaped at him for a second in disbelief and disappointment.

  
"What do you mean, why? Because I don’t think that you should execute someone who hasn’t done anything wrong!" She held her fists tightly at her side.

“But he has-” Arthur tried to argue, but Gwen held up her hands and he fell silent.

"Don't get me wrong, he broke the law. But there's a difference between morality and legality. And I know that mostly everyone with magic has tried to hurt you, but he didn't. I just think that you should judge him on his actions. You know, not on what he is but on who he is."

"Gwenivere,” He shrugged helplessly, to which Gwen clenched her jaw angrily. “I can't."

“That’s a bald-faced lie.” Gwen strode across the room in fury, and Arthur felt a little twinge of fear in his stomach, no matter how silly it seemed. “You’ve let magic users go before, legal or not, when it suited you. That druid boy we took back to his people, all those years ago, you really think he didn’t have any magic? Don’t be thick. The man you plan on killing tonight saved at least a dozen people. He’s just as much a hero as you are.”

“I am nothing like him!” Arthur yelled. Gwen crossed her arms and stared him down.

“Why is a suggestion of similarity between you and someone who prevented people’s deaths and the deaths of their livelihoods a bad thing?” she retorted.

  
“He has magic!” he shrieked.

“Who cares?!” she roared back.

“Magic killed my father!”

“And is the only reason you’re standing here, arguing about it!”

“The hell do you mean by that,” Arthur demanded.

“I know about why Uther started the Purge. I know about your mother and your birth. You’ve been raised in a bigoted age, but you don’t have to keep agreeing with it!” Gwen was red in the face and gesturing wildly to illustrate her point. “You’re the ruddy king, Arthur, you can make your own decisions!”

“I am making my own decisions,” he snapped. “And my decision is that he will die. That’s all there is to say about it.”

Gwen shot him a dark look and stomped to the door, muttering under her breath.

“Care to repeat that, would you?” he called furiously.

She whipped back around, clearly feeling the same way. “No, not really, your majesty, as you’re clearly determined to remain stuck in this stupid, homicidal frame of mind! Have fun murdering people for something they can’t control!”

She slammed the door as she left and Arthur felt too shocked to go after her. To try to convince her of the truth. To try to explain that there was no room in the hearts of sorcerors for compassion, no thoughts in their heads for using their gifts to heal, no willingness in their hands to protect anyone but themselves.

"Agh," he groaned. He'd already messed up his relationship with Gwen, and now it seemed utterly beyond repair.

He put down his pen and rolled up the parchment, sighing. He scrubbed at the back of his head irritatedly, and then grumbled, frustrated, when he felt the ink in his hair drip down his neck.

He shouted for George and the bootlicking servant appeared seemingly out of thin air.

"Yes, sire?"

"I need to wash my hair." Arthur grabbed a stray towel and held it at his neck to keep his shirt from getting stained.

"Right away, sire." George whisked out of the room and returned quickly. He ran water over Arthur’s head and dried his hair, efficiently washing out the ink.

He watched through his window as the sorceror was walked outside and tied to the pyre. He didn't seem all that concerned, and his demeanor really didn't match that of a man condemned to death in flames. It was one much more suitable for someone about to have a meal with a somewhat dull in-law.

"To hell with it," Arthur muttered grumpily. "I'm improvising."

When Arthur emerged onto the balcony to join his courtiers and knights, the sorceror looked up at him. Even with some forty feet between them, Arthur could see the disappointment in his eyes. The scum had the gall to feel disappointed in Arthur for executing him.

"We are gathered here today to witness the execution of this man here," Arthur bellowed regally, his voice carrying across the courtyard easily. "This man here, a nameless sorceror, who has made no effort to refute, deny, or defend himself. Let it be known that one execution saves the lives of many more."

He dropped his hand and a guard came forward to light the pyre.

As soon as the torch touched the wood, the fire blazed unnaturally, obscuring the sorceror from view. There were no screams or cries for mercy, and if anything it only made everyone in attendance feel more uncomfortable. Embers soared off into the air and the fire lasted much shorter than Arthur had ever seen.

When the flames died down, there was no man left, nor any wood, only a mound of white, fluffy ash.

“That's not supposed to happen,” Gwaine said, stunned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope it all made sense and it read well, and if you liked it, I would appreciate kudos or a comment!
> 
> This one is over 1000 words longer than the second longest chapter, but I'm back on track with the angst train, so that's all good. I also had a wildly difficult time naming this one, so it refers to coins, just in case it didn't make any sense.
> 
> My wonderful beta is STILL the same person: @wolvaraash, who has accounts on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr! Her art is on all of those and it is mindblowing, so check her out if you like!


	6. Empty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Includes an in-depth description of crying.

Away.

Away.

He had to get away.

Merlin tried to direct himself somewhere in the midst of the tumultuous in-between of his transport spell, but he could barely think. His thoughts were scrambled and desperate, not at all what he needed. The lump in his throat was hardly helping things.

Come on.

Anywhere.

Anywhere at all.

Anywhere that wasn't Camelot.

With a deafening sound that reminded him of magic and Morgana's attacks, Merlin glimpsed dry, patchy grass a split second before he crashed into it. He picked his head up and touched his cheek gingerly. It hurt. Merlin sensed that he'd scraped it on something on the ground and he rolled over onto his back.

"For crying out loud."

He didn't really know what he meant, or if he even meant anything at all, but it felt good to say something. He didn't have his cloak with him, which was unfortunate, because all he really wanted to do was curl up with something around his shoulders and cry.

Maybe he couldn't wrap himself up like a baby, but he could cry. If nothing else, he could always cry.

He let out a shaky breath and let himself cry, the first time he’d exposed his magic to his friend. He felt tears well up and spill over, quietly and yet all-consuming in the tiny world that Merlin had trapped himself in.

The funny thing about crying while lying on one's back was that the tears don't fall down to one's chin. This, of course, makes complete sense, but is nonetheless quite disorienting. When one cries curled up in a ball in a corner, the tears fall onto one's knee and it overall makes it feel like all the puzzle pieces have clicked together. Eye sockets fit over knee caps, fingers lace together. Everything makes sense. But crying on one's back makes the tears slip out along narrow paths to one's ears, which is unpleasant at the best of times, and downright confusing if one has really had one's entire world shatter and spit one out into an unknown, sparsely grassy place where one doesn't even know which way is up or down, or where the nearest source of comfort or strong alcohol is. 

Occasionally, comfort and strong alcohol are known to be synonyms, although it tends not to be very long-lasting.

Merlin finally opened his eyes and was greeted only with darkness. He could make out the outlines of some trees, which all seemed rather unfriendly, but there was no moon in the sky. While Merlin did not generally consider himself superstitious, barring his life-saving habit of taking care to observe the rules of dealing with magic and its associated creatures, he felt somewhat unsettled.

He sighed. He knew there was something behind it, something that would eat away at him, something that he should resolve, but he was too tired to deal with it. He'd just been executed.

His eyes flashed with magic. Then the image of Arthur's contempt filled his mind, and his magic - his very essence - cowed and vanished somewhere out of his reach. If he had to guess, he would say it ran off to his stomach, going by the pit in it. Merlin held his right arm to his chest. He didn't think that he'd be able to cast for a while. The very idea of doing magic made him feel sick to his stomach and his heart hammer in his chest.

Resigned to the only course of action left to him, he chose a direction at random and set off robotically, trying not to let himself think too much on anything other than how the darkness made everything look blue, and which foot he was stepping with.

Left.

Right.

Left.

Right.

Arthur. Arthur was going to- 

LEFT.

RIGHT.

LEFT.

RIGHT.

"Sir?"

Merlin wrestled himself out of the layers he'd hidden his conscious brain in, and still only managed a soft "hmm?" in response. He cleared his throat nervously. "Yes, sorry. Hello."

"Are you alright?" The owner of the voice came into view, although all that Merlin could make out was that they were very short, and their hair probably hadn't been brushed for some time.

"I...," he started, before reconsidering his answer. "No. No, I suppose I'm not really alright. What about you?"

"I'm fine, sir."

"That's good to hear."

They stood in silence. Merlin didn't know if he had the energy to do anything at all. The prospect of even taking another step daunted him. He shouldn't have stopped.

"Sir, you are," the speaker lowered their voice, as if frightened or expecting immediate, horrifying consequences, "you are Emrys, are you not?"

Merlin nodded tiredly. "You're a druid, then?"

"Yes, sir." There was a slight, fearful pause. "Would you like to come back to my camp? It's very late. You must be very tired. We might be able to help your arm, if you'll allow us."

"Sure," Merlin replied, not caring enough to worry how it was interpreted.

A small, delicate hand slipped into his and led him through the trees. A child's hand, without a doubt. Merlin thought about what would happen if she so much as made a flower grow within the walls of Camelot and sighed again. As much as he hated admitting defeat, he felt despair swallowing him. Had he left Camelot worse than he found it?

He barely registered it as he saw someone emerge from a tent and hurry over to them.

"Vin, what are you doing up?" demanded the new person. Merlin stared off into the trees and felt his brain cloud over.

"I found Emrys, Sara," came the response.

"Oh, honey, you can't joke about that."

"I'm not! It's him!" Vin tugged on Merlin's hand and he looked down at her emptily. "You're Emrys, aren't you? You said you were."

"Yes," he replied, and even his words sounded hollow. "Yes, I am."

"He doesn't seem very well, Vin. I'm going to check him over, okay? Run off to bed. Your mother is worried sick about you, although I convinced her to go to bed." Vin's hand fell through Merlin's like water and he felt himself being led a little way into the camp, where Sara sat him down on a log.

A fog smothered Merlin in his own mind, and he was barely aware of the world around him.

Arthur had killed him.

Arthur had really, honest to the sky above, executed him for half of Camelot to see.

When he’d spoken with Arthur, he’d tried to make sure he put his best foot forward. Really, he'd saved people. And yet, Arthur had been irrational and homicidal. He hadn't listened to reason. He hadn't given Merlin a trial. He'd been as thoughtlessly ruthless as Uther had been. Merlin almost hadn’t recognized the man he'd left some four days prior.

He didn't need to ask himself what caused it, because the timing made it almost too easy. Clearly Merlin leaving had been the worst decision of his life. If only he'd known of the ensuing consequences, he never would have even considered running away. But he had... and he had to live with it.

Presuming that what he'd been told about some highly suspect "not dying" business was actually true, and he almost found himself hoping that it wasn't.

No. He couldn't follow that line of thinking. He had to get back to Arthur at some point. He absolutely had to. He had to make things right, in any way possible. Merlin had to hang on to something to keep himself going, and if rectifying his mistake with Arthur was it, well, it was better than nothing.

Something tickled his ears, and he was abruptly made away that he was being shaken.

Ah, a voice.

"My lord Emrys, can you hear me or not?"

"I- I can." His words were met with a sigh of relief.

"Oh good. I was worried there might be some sort of brain damage too." Sara leaned closer to check his eyes. "That is to say, something like a blow to the head. Not whatever's got you locked up in your noggin."

Merlin looked down at his arm, frowning in contemplation. He paused before he looked back up at Sara.

"Can you fix my arm? I- I can't feel it." Damn his mouth, it was like talking with a flock of sheep instead of a tongue.

"Yes, I imagine so. I don't think I can prevent any scarring, unfortunately." Sara tried to meet his eyes, and Merlin stared back.

"That's fine."

"Alright."

In an instant, Sara's hand was aglow with a lavender bubble, and Merlin released his tenuous grip on consciousness.

 

Merlin slowly opened his eyes to the morning sun, his eyelids sticking together with sleep gunk. The light filtered through layers upon layers of deciduous leaves, and Merlin lay still for some time listening to the druids wake up and start bustling about their camp. He could hear a fire crackling and children chattering.

He gazed upwards and let his mind play tricks on him with the light.

"Emrys," said someone softly, far too early. He turned his head to them. "Emrys, my name is Brust. Please come with me, if you would be so kind."

"Of course." Merlin pushed himself up as if even the tiniest expenditure of energy was an arduous chore, and followed Brust to somewhere at the far edge of the camp.

"Emrys, what are you doing out here?" Brust asked accusingly. Merlin rolled his shoulders and cracked his knuckles.

"To be perfectly honest with you, I don't even know where I am. I teleported out here last night and then Vin came across me."

"Well, make sure that you keep yourself safe. We wouldn't want magic incarnate getting himself drowned, now would we?" Brust clapped Merlin on the shoulder, and Merlin raised a dispassionate eyebrow in reply. "Also, maybe take the time to think about you're going next time. Just some friendly advice."

"Yeah, thanks," Merlin replied, struggling to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. Brust started back to camp but Merlin tapped them on the shoulder sheepishly."You, ah, wouldn't happen to have a cloak that I can, you know, have, would you?"

Brust sighed.

"Of course. Right this way, Emrys."

 

Huddled in his new blue cloak among a pile of fallen leaves, Merlin ruminated on everything that passed through his mind. 

Was he really nothing but a vessel for magic at this point? The druids didn't really seem to care for who he was, only for what he was and what he could do for them. They didn't know, or want to know, that he had held his father in his arms as he died, that he'd met one of his closest friends by getting into a hopeless bar fight, or even that he had friends across borders and had seen them through to each of their goals. From what Brust had said, it certainly sounded like the only reason the druids cared that he hadn't offed himself yet was because he was in some old, stuffy prophecy of theirs.

Lancelot knew about his magic, though, and he valued him as a friend. Then again, he probably prized Merlin's magic above whatever he might say to the contrary. His magic had won Lance a knightship once, and always came to the rescue when things got too difficult for Lance's skill with a blade.

Arthur didn't know about his magic, and Merlin could only count his blessings that he wouldn't be there to see him find out. Of course, because Arthur didn't know about his magic, he had nothing to value him for but what he contributed as a confidant and friend. He certainly didn't think highly of his skills as a servant, which was fair. Naturally, this led Merlin to the unavoidable truth: As soon as Arthur knew of his magic, it didn't matter who he was or what he'd done. He was condemned the minute his eyes shone gold.

He really was just his magic. He really wasn't Merlin, servant of King Arthur. He was Magic, Emrys, the Last Dragonlord, what have you. What did a name really mean, anyway? All it was was a collection of noises that someone else had decided to assign to you. It wasn't you or an indication of your character. It was...

Merlin hummed to himself, trying to think of what a name was.

Meaningless.

It was meaningless.

Just like he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so originally Merlin was going to teleport and get immediately punched in the face, but I don't know why I wanted that to happen so... Have this other thing! Which is hopefully just as good.
> 
> Also... This is a lot more depressing than I set out to write. But I guess it fits and it needed to happen at some point, but still. Jeez, Merlin, you angsty boy. Calm down.
> 
> Additionally, I'm sorry that no one has a gender, the concept of gender and I are not on speaking terms, which is to say that I generally don't understand it at all. What can you do.
> 
> Thanks for reading! I had a lot of fun with this one, and I also stayed up until five in the morning writing it. As usual, any kudos or comments would be massively appreciated, and I love you guys for sticking with me.
> 
> My beta is still @wolvaraash. You know where you can find her.
> 
> IN OTHER ANNOUNCEMENTS: I will not be somewhere with an internet connection for about a week, so I won't be able to post something next. I might not get around to writing either, given that it's a huge hassle to move a couple thousand words from the page of a journal to google drive. But give me two weeks and something will probably be posted.


	7. One Month Later

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What it says on the tin

Arthur stood at the foot of his bed, staring at a trail of blood that wound through his room and out the door. He hadn't seen it earlier, but he knew in his bones that the blood was Merlin's and that he needed to find him.

He hurried out of his room and followed the blood through the hallways of his castle. The walls seemed to shift ever so slightly, like the distortions on a road on a hot day. Arthur hurried on.

He'd thought that he knew the castle better than anyone, but the farther he went the less he recognized the hallways. They seemed to get darker, and walls seemed to be closing in. The only thing that helped him keep on his way was the blood which was also becoming darker and slimier. It bubbled like some disgusting sort of stew. It reminded Arthur of something that Gaius might feed him.

"Merlin! Merlin, I'm coming!" he tried to scream. His voice never escaped his throat, and he coughed painfully. He tried again, hoping that anything would get out. "Fuck!"

That got caught in his throat too. Arthur hacked and it felt like some clawed monstrosity was clutching at his lungs, clenching and releasing them as it saw fit. 

He couldn’t breathe. He gasped and choked, but he still couldn’t get a single breath.

He fell to the ground. It didn't hurt as much as he had known sudden impacts on stone to hurt. His energy flagged, the lack of air dulling his hearing and making his throat burn. It was as if the cold, callous hands of unconsciousness were strangling him, dragging Arthur further and further into its depths. He struggled for a breath, scrabbling weakly at his neck, to no avail. Unable to escape, he succumbed helplessly to the darkness.

When he slowly came back into awareness, he tried to stand, and failed miserably. What was wrong with him? His legs seemed fine. He pushed himself upwards as far as he could before he felt a sort of clammy barrier shove him back into a crouch. He crawled forwards, Merlin's corrupted blood soaking into his pant knees.

Arthur peered through the foggy darkness, attempting to see ahead of him. He didn't know when the fog had seeped into the room, but it only served to make him more claustrophobic. He hugged his arms for a second before continuing his way on his hands and knees.

What was that? Just outside of where he could see with any real detail, there was a dark, barely moving lump.

Arthur reached out tentatively, his other arm barely holding him up. His fingers curled around what felt like an arm, and he pulled the lump towards him. Slowly, ever so slowly, the lump rolled towards him. The arm came to the floor. The head, if it was a head, still faced away from him. He grabbed the chin, doing his best not to recoil as his fingers slid unnaturally on the skin, and turned it to look at him.

He dropped his hand immediately and tried to crawl back, but the darkness had caught up to him and pressed against his back like a wall.

A pale face stared at him, blood dripping from its eyes down the sides of its face and to its chin. The farther down he looked, the darker the blood became, drawing Arthur’s memory back to the bubbling slime he’d followed.

"Merlin," he breathed, and the word floated out of his mouth like a spool of silk rolling off a table. It drifted through what limited space he still had left and settled on Merlin's chest. Merlin took one heaving breath and seemed to explode with light. He convulsed and shook until he no longer seemed connected to the ground, which left him to thrash in the air.

"Merlin! Merlin, please, stop!"

The body stilled, much to Arthur's relief, but did not come to rest on the ground. Arthur struggled to stand. He slipped his hand into Merlin's and pulled him to the ground as gently as he could. His servant came to rest on his knees and only managed to say "Arthur" in the hoarsest voice that Arthur had ever heard before melting into blood and disappearing.

Arthur's eyes snapped open to the darkness of his room. He tore the blankets away from him and stared at his bloodied legs, all that remained of his… Of Merlin. He clapped a hand over his mouth, willing himself not to hurl at the gruesome sight.

Water invaded his eyes, and Arthur couldn’t tell if it was because he’d kept his eyes open too long or that he just couldn’t bear the sight of blood. He’d seen blood before, of course he had, but this was different. It was deeply disturbing to him in a way he couldn’t fully articulate. He looked away, blinking away the tears away furiously.

He forced himself to turn his head back to look at the blood. It was gone, thank everything, and he exhaled, relieved.

He'd been having the same dream for almost a month now, and it always ended the same way. There was nothing he could do. There was no possibility of saving his companion of six years.

No longer tired, Arthur pushed himself out of bed and meandered over to the nearest window. There would be no hope for any more sleep, and he had already gotten everything done that he might have otherwise set his mind to in an effort to escape the horrific memory of his dream. He'd already done that the last twenty six nights.

The citadel of Camelot was quiet and somber in the pale moonlight. Few people were awake, and those that were had yet to leave their homes. Most of the city was in mourning for Merlin, having already resigned themselves to accepting him as dead. Arthur couldn't join them. He had to believe that his... His servant was still alive. If Merlin was dead, Arthur didn't know what he would do with himself. Who would he talk to in the dead of night, wondering about fantastic ideas and silly what-ifs? Who would he joke with while he was half asleep? He'd suffered through George's service, and had no intentions of doing so again. It wasn't in anyway appropriate to do the same things with Gwen, and the relationship just wasn't the same. He was going to starve himself of close friendships, if Merlin was gone. How would he survive?

He grumbled to himself and walked over to his desk, only for lack of anything better to do. He pulled a report off of the ever-shrinking stack. Most of them were single slips of paper that only mentioned the shifting of who was on duty in some distant outpost, or the estimation of how many people the recent harvest could feed.

Arthur's eyes slid across the paper, barely registering the words printed with professional legibility. Then his eyes came to rest on 'sorceror,' which was written with an inconspicuous loops. Shocked, he tore his eyes to the top of the page and started reading again.

'The security committee appointed and created by His Most Glorious Majesty, King Arthur Pendragon, which includes...' Arthur skipped past the listing of the lords and knights on the committee. He knew who they were. He had put them there. 'The committee has, through a variety of sources, both the committee's agents and independent informants, become increasingly aware of a group or entity that has been traveling just outside of the Camelot borders. The committee has reason to believe that it is a single sorceror. They have been described with a multitude of scars. The described number increases after each chronological report. The latest account details him as a tall man dressed in robes of a druidic style. He has a wound that has just recently faded into a scar on his face. It starts at the base of his chin, warps around it, and then continues through his lip. He is known to walk with a limp on and off. He favors his left hand, although it does not seem to be his dominant one. Commonly, he is seen in a town with troubles of health or banditry. He will stay for a night or two and then move on. He has no name that anyone has come forward with, and everyone has a different title for him. The committee awaits the action recommended by His Majesty King Arthur Pendragon.'

Arthur found his nose almost pressed to the paper and he pushed himself away hastily.

While sorcerors were hardly uncommon, it was rare to see one so brazenly wandering around in the country side. The man his committee was tracking was clearly making an effort not to cross the border. He must not have wanted to even risk entering the jurisdiction of Camelot.

Why would he emerge now? Why was there so much sudden sorcerous activity, after so long? Morgana had been quiet for a long while. She had made no new moves against Arthur for far longer than he could ever had hoped for, although it had been voiced that it was only because she was planning something big. Something bigger than she'd ever attempted before.

Arthur shook himself and stood. He needed to address a directive to his committees. He needed to think clearly, and free of his concern for Merlin. He needed a second opinion.

Hurriedly, he pulled a fresh shirt on and grabbed his trench coat. He rushed out of his room and through the hallways of his castle. He made his way out of the front doors and wound through the streets to the defunct blacksmith forge.

Arthur knocked on the door and stood at the door, hunched over in impatience.

Gwen answered it after a few minutes of intermittent pounding on the door.

"Who the hell are you to wake me right now?" she demanded angrily. And then, after a beat. "Oh. Arthur. What do you want?"

He stammered in the ferocious wall of Gwen's stony face and folded arms. She always did manage to frighten his words out of him.

"C- can I come in?" he managed after a second. She stared back at him coldly. They hadn't spoken since she had erupted at him in his room.

"Of course."

Arthur smiled tentatively and entered. Gwen shut the door behind him and cornered him against her table.

"What do you want, Arthur?" He scrambled to regain his composure, and swallowed harshly. He lifted his chin.

"I have some new information about the security of our kingdom, and I thought it would be a good idea to get a second opinion. I am sorry for the intrusion, but normally I would go to Merlin." Arthur cracked his knuckles nervously and quickly put his hand into his pocket. Gwen's face softened slightly.

"I see."

Arthur nodded thankfully at her understanding and pulled the report from his other pocket. He handed it to her and gestured with his hand for her to read it as she pleased. He then contented himself with watching her face. She had a habit of mouthing the words that passed through her mind.

She seemed mildly surprised that he had formed a security committee, as she had both heard nothing of it and it seemed somewhat more paranoid than Arthur was known to be. As she read Arthur's title, she made a mocking grimace and scoffed lightly. Arthur grunted irritably. She became quieter as she went on, and when she gasped when she came across the description of the man's scar.

Gwen came to the end of the report, stared at the rest of the page for a bit, and then snapped her gaze up to Arthur's and handed the sheet of paper back to him.

"What do you think?" Arthur asked, clinging to the appearance of authority.

"I think that you have far too little information to do anything," she replied, stealing it from him effortlessly.

"So I should just wait for a second report? Just sit on my hands and do nothing?"

"No, you should go to your committee and ask for more information. You should ask for higher security. Ask for your agents to keep a special eye on this man. Then decide later. The more information, the better." She smiled as if she knew something he didn't. "Seek first to understand."

Arthur gave her a sort of half-shrug in response, as if to say "what does that mean?" Gwen's smile fell.

"My dad used to tell me that whenever I got into fights with someone. It was his way of telling me that my first priority should be understanding why someone did something, not pounding the shit out of them for it." She looked away from him and frowned.

Sensing that there was nothing to really say to that, Arthur smiled awkwardly and took his leave. As he walked through the streets, his thoughts wandered back to Merlin, and where on earth he could have gotten to. He and the round table knights had eventually decided that it was impossible for him to have betrayed Camelot, mostly given how he was far more loyal, even stupidly so, than the average Camelot guard. The possibility of Merlin being a traitor was almost non-existent. Arthur wouldn't–no, he couldn't–believe it.

But where could he have gone? For someone to disappear so completely, it seemed that the only answer could possibly be magic. He sighed and dragged a hand down his face.

He stalked back through castle to his room.

Arthur searched through his desk for a sheet of paper and a pen, and began writing a letter requesting that the security committee send more frequent reports and assign a tail to the sorceror. He lounged in his chair, pondering the value of demanding anything else.

After he determined that there was no reason to add to his letter, he folded it and set it aside for later.

Arthur stretched, bored, and trudged over to his bed. He flopped onto it face-first and groaned. There was so much that he didn't know what to do with. Where was Merlin when Arthur needed him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I'm tired and don't have much else to say besides the oft-repeated thing about how comments and kudos are great.
> 
> My beta forgot that Merlin had a disguise on when Arthur murdered him, so in case you forgot too:
> 
> ARTHUR THINKS THAT HE KILLED SOMEONE WHO KILLED/ENDANGERED/KIDNAPPED MERLIN, HE DOES NOT THINK THAT THIS IS MERLIN, HE IS LOOKING FOR HIM BUT IT'S BEEN A MONTH AND HE'S LOSING HOPE.
> 
> That wonderfully silly person who managed to forget a major plot point and then rationalize everything else that I wrote is @wolvaraash, who has accounts on Instagram, Facebook, Tumblr, and Twitter. Her art is amazing and you should check her out if you get the chance!


	8. Mr. Murder McStabby Pants (formerly 'Blades' but fuck that)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uhhhh... Double update?? How wild is this

A cottage. A house. Human life.

It didn't matter. He didn't care. He just needed to see someone's face.

He rapped twice on the door, not caring who answered it. The door snapped open to reveal a young woman with her hair put up haphazardly. Merlin watched as her eyes traveled over his most visible scar– how she took in how it curved around his chin and cut through his lip. He said nothing, and waited for her fascination to dissipate.

"Can I help you?" she said, finally.

"I need information and a meal," he replied, and he was surprised at how steady his voice was, given how long it had been since he'd used it.

She nodded mutely and stepped aside so that he could enter. He nodded back and had to duck a bit to keep his head from hitting any of the plants or stones dangling from her ceiling. She gestured to one of the two chairs at her table and Merlin obediently took a seat. He studied the hem of his robes that the druids had given him as his host moved around her kitchen silently. After a few minutes, she dropped a bowl of some unappetizing, stew-like mush in front of him. He hummed gratefully and tucked in.

"What's your name?" she grunted after he'd had a few bites.

"Call me whatever you like," he responded tonelessly. "Chances are I'll answer to it."

There was a brief pause, as if she was waiting for something. It never came.

"I'm Rix. Rix Stoan." Something tickled against Merlin's magic, whispering to him about falsehoods. She was lying. Whatever her real name was, whoever she was, "Rix Stoan" wasn't it. Not that it mattered. He let the creeping wrongness go, let her keep her secrets.

His palace manners kicked in. "Pleasure to meet your acquaintance, Rix." She nodded back curtly.

"What do you want to know? Someone like you could probably know anything you wanted to, easily." Then, as she took in his eyes, which had widened ever so slightly, she added: "Your magic screams at me. If I couldn't feel it, I would be very surprised."

"I need to know the state of Camelot." He leaned back into the chair and watched Rix's face carefully. Her eyebrows twitched and she frowned, perplexed.

"Camelot is fine. Her king is no more mad than he ever was. Their patrols have been seen all over, though. They're looking for someone. Someone probably long dead." Merlin flinched, but he didn't know why– he'd been dead for far longer than anyone knew. "It's you, isn't it? The knights of Camelot are tearing the kingdoms apart looking for you." The 'you' dropped into his stomach, and he swallowed past the lump in his throat.

"No," he ground out, and his host fixed him with a glare that could kill something. He hugged his cloak around him and scowled back. "I've never met that king or any of his knights. I simply hoped that perhaps new laws had been passed. Or maybe that I could visit my sister without worrying that my head might be chopped off." The lie slipped so easily off his tongue that it almost worried him, before he recalled how he'd lied to everyone he'd met for six years. It was hardly a new skill and if he hadn't learned it by now, it would have been a cause for concern. Rix stared at him, her arms folded stubbornly across her chest.

"Fine," she grunted at last. "But nothing of the sort has happened. We're still demons there."

He shrugged in response. He hadn't expected anything else. "Shame," was all he said.

"Suppose so," she replied. He went back to eating the stew, and Rix watched him silently.

"Traveler." Merlin looked up. "Are you a High Priest?" Shock shuddered through his gut, fear flipped his stomach, and disbelief bottomed it out.

"No one ever approached me about the position." He clenched his hands into fists to try and keep them from shaking. "The possibility seems remarkably slim to me."

Her eyes, which had always seemed to pierce straight through him, narrowed. They seemed as sharp as arrowheads and just as deadly.

"Traveler," she began again, with a weight on her words that he rarely heard. "Are you the warlock the druids call Emrys?"

His heart pounded in his chest. It was faster than any beat for a dance, faster than any song he'd heard sung. He tried in vain to pinch himself and slow it down. He didn't want that name. It painted a target on his chest and handed reverence that he neither desired nor deserved to him on a silver platter.

"No." It was only after the words tumbled out of his mouth that he realized he was too slow in answering. Rix slid a knife from her sleeve and came at him, low and fast.

"The Lady Morgana sends her regards," she hissed.

Without moving a muscle, he sent her flying into the far wall of her house. Her knife clattered to the floor, and his magic pulled it to him with mind-blowing speed. He pushed himself up from the table slowly, wearily. He made his way over to where the young woman was pinned to the wall. The fastest he went was an amble, and reluctance oozed from him. Rix stared at him, terrified.

"Thank you for the stew," he said honestly. "I haven't had such a good meal in a long time." That said a great deal more about how little he'd been eating than the quality of the stew, but he felt that the courtesy was important, regardless of how much it was an actual compliment.

"You can't kill her," his prisoner blurted desperately. Clearly, she knew that there was little she could do to really harm him. He almost would have found it funny, if a dull emptiness hadn't echoed through him.

"And why is that, exactly?"

"She just wants to bring magic back. You can't kill her. She's just trying to balance everything out, as it should be. Camelot is corrupted, don't you see? She just wants to cleanse it." Rix twitched, struggling in vain to grab at her throat as Merlin slowly stole her air. Not that it would do her any good. This woman clearly had no magic, despite being sensitive to it. Her hands could do nothing against an arcane threat.

"Cleanse it of my friends, you mean," he growled, and Rix bucked against the wall, terrified.

"No!" She gasped for air and flailed with no direction in her movements. "No!"

Wordlessly, he yanked her last few breaths from her lungs and watched the light fade from her eyes. Some sick satisfaction slithered around his chest before fading back into indistinct hollowness, and he set to searching Rix's house for resources.

A few minutes later found him with dried jerky that could last him at least a week, a full waterskin and a blanket. It would suffice for a journey to wherever he ended up next, so he waved his hand and moved the corpse to her thin, straw-filled bed. If anyone else found the damned place, maybe they would think she died in her sleep. It was certainly better than the truth.

He shut the door quietly on his way out and looked up at the sky, trying to gauge direction. It was well into the afternoon, that was for sure, so that meant that... That meant that north was to his right.

He spun ninety degrees to his right and marched off. The snow was shallow, but his feet were still unbearably cold. He didn't have the slightest idea where he was going, but moving seemed like a significantly better idea than sticking around with a dead body. And as long as he was moving, he felt at the very least like he had some sort of purpose, even if it was just getting to wherever he happened to be going.

 

When the sun started going down, he checked around for a nice, sheltered area. Unfortunately, the best it seemed that he could hope for was a few oak saplings and a slightly larger-than-average boulder.

He sighed.

He waved his hand, causing the snow in the clearing to melt and a fire to start just outside of the rock. He crouched under the boulder and warmed his hands by the fire.

"Merlin," he mumbled to himself, trying the sound out. It felt alien on his tongue. He hadn't said it in ages. He groaned and tipped his head back to look up at the sky. "Fuck."

Strangely, that felt far more comfortable.

He certainly didn’t feel like he was Merlin anymore. Or rather, his magic defined him far more than he did. It had been bad enough when Arthur had been blind to his actions in the streets of Camelot, but the way that Brust had valued the raw power of his magic over his own ability to use it skillfully. Not to mention that he had skills that didn’t have anything to do with magic, which no one seemed to care about in the least.

And without Arthur to protect, like he’d been told that it was his destiny to do, what was left for him to do?

Just… Nothing.

Just as he looked back down at his feet, he caught sight of someone moving several meters away. He made sure not to indicate he'd seen it, but he cast his spell to see the path ahead. It was a woman who wore no kingdom colors or crests. Merlin yanked her towards the campfire and slammed her into the ground.

"Have you been following me?" he said softly.

The woman said nothing and flipped him the bird.

"Have you," he tried again, this time pouring magic into his question, "been following me?"

Her mouth opened compulsively and she looked scared.

"Yes!"

"For how long?"

"Two weeks."

"On whose orders?"

"Those of King Arthur Pendragon and his security committee. They received reports of you about a month ago, and His Majesty wanted more information before they took action." Her face was twisted in anger at how Merlin forced information from her mouth. He pressed his lips together disappointedly. Would Arthur really do this?

"Does Arthur have a plan if he doesn't like what I'm doing?"

"Yes," she replied through gritted teeth. "This!"

She pulled a knife from a sheath on her leg and thrust it towards him with surprising force.

Merlin threw himself to the side. The blade grazed his shoulder. He yelled. He landed on his other side, hard.

She shoved him onto his back and pinned him. She raised the knife above his chest.

He pulled for his magic desperately.

She brought it down.

He dragged the flames from the fire pit.

With the blade inches from burying itself in his chest and him in the ground, he poured fire towards her, knocking her off.

It came down to cut him just below his ribs.

On the verge of hysterics, his magic exploded out of him, throwing his attacker to the edge of the small clearing he'd settled in. The dirt around her wrists and ankles reached around and pinned her like a starfish. She tossed herself back and forth to no avail as Merlin clutched at his wounds.

"Let me go!" she shrieked. "You can't just go around magically trapping people with dirt!"

"You stabbed me!" he yelled back.

"After you magically interrogated me!"

"I was asking you questions! You took out a knife!"

She didn't seem to have anything to respond with and flopped back dramatically. She gave an exaggerated sigh as well, which Merlin thought was rather overdoing it.

He stalked over to her. She didn't seem very frightened now.

"What is it with people and knives today?" He tried to crouch, but it agitated the cut on his torso so he sat down with his legs straight out in front of him like a child. "You're the second person to attack me with a knife today. To be fair, you're a lot more skilled than she was. And you actually hit me, which I'm not terribly happy about."

"That woman in the cabin?" He looked over, surprised, at the woman pinned by the ground. "Yeah, I came across her when I was following you. You killed her."

"There's not much point in denying it, but to be fair, she did try to kill me first."

"Who are you?" she snapped, sounding like she was stuck between awe and disgust.

"That's a great question," he replied. "I'm not quite sure, if I'm being honest." She stared at him. He looked out at the trees surrounding him.

"Why don't I have the biggest burn ever right now?" she asked after a few seconds of dead silence. "You practically tossed the campfire at me."

"I just wanted you off, not dead. Why? Are you disappointed?" He smiled a bit to himself, wishing that he was talking to Arthur, who would have picked up on how he was teasing. All he heard instead was scoffing. They rested in silence for a bit longer, although Merlin spent the still moments trying to stop the bleeding.

He glanced around, trying to find the knife. It would be helpful to have one with him, despite his magic. He'd certainly feel safer with one.

Spotting it, he stood up gingerly. His eyes glinted with gold and summoned it to his hand. The woman behind him strained to see what he was doing. He snapped his fingers, transporting her to Camelot, if he had done it right. He was pretty sure he had.

He meandered back to his fire pit and reignited it. He took out the jerky and bit into it. He'd have to be more careful than he'd ever had to before, now that he knew that Arthur was hunting him. It would probably take Arthur a while to get someone out to where he was again, so he had a bit of time. At least Arthur was putting the security committee to good use. He'd created it at Merlin's urging and had been originally skeptical of how it could help at all. So something good had come of leaving Camelot after all.

As he continued gnawing on the jerky, his knee twinged. He pulled his robes away to look at it curiously. Perhaps he'd jammed his knee at some point? He was pretty sure that he hadn't been stabbed there.

Sure enough, the skin was not broken and the joint wasn't swollen, making it unlikely that he'd jammed it. He considered it, confused. There wasn't anything he could really do for it if he couldn't figure out what was wrong.

Sharp, unforgiving pain shot through his knee again. He winced. It was either growing pains or magic, and seeing as he was in his mid-twenties, growing pains seemed rather unlikely.

He grabbed the knife and yanked his book from the tear. He felt a bit weak in his hands, but ignored it as he flipped urgently through the book to find what he needed. It had to be in there somewhere. Maybe the next page, or the next... There!

He mumbled the words hurriedly. Nothing happened.

Again. Again. Again.

His knee still felt like it was being stabbed.

He read the page again, frantically searching for a way to improve his casting. The only thing that seemed like it might do anything to help was to do what he had done for years before coming to Camelot. He pulled his magic to the surface and focused on what he needed.

Blue bubbles clouded over the blade and it ignited with warm orange glow.

"Arthur used magic?" he murmured, barely aware he'd said it aloud.

He looked back to his book and flipped through it again, looking for some spell that might get a bit more specific. It only took him a few moments to find a spell that fit his needs exactly.

This time forgoing the words entirely, he hummed a soothing, repetitive tune to himself. His magic flowed easily and the bubbles flared brighter.

He rocked back as a wave of information slammed into his brain.

Despite never hearing of such a thing before in his life, he now recognized it as the Blade of Cahrathis–a knife enchanted by a long-forgotten magician known as Errol. It’s sole purpose was originally that of initiation of new members into a little-known and ineffectual cult known as Errol's Owls. Scenes of initiates standing at the ready in an arena, the knife lying innocuously between them, assaulted Merlin’s mind, and he saw the outcome of each one, each as bloody and horrible as the last. One initiate would get a hold of the knife and stab the other, causing their opponent to be the victim of excruciating phantom pain all over their body. Eventually, the victim would either kill whoever was responsible – lifting the curse as a result – or take their own life, desperate for the pain to end.

He felt how the magic had been both weakened and reinforced, changing and evolving as other magicians modified it. Eventually, someone had enchanted it to make it more difficult to avoid facing the consequences if one had gotten someone else stabbed indirectly. Any proxies used were no longer held responsible. While he cursed the magician who'd changed the spell in such a way, he also saw how it discouraged power hungry nobles from sending peasants off to stab their political enemies. The only good thing that came from the edits on the knife was that it was somewhat weaker than it had known to be in its prime. But if the pain in his knee was anything to go on, it was still agonizingly strong.

Worse, he couldn't lift the curse. If he couldn't die, and Arthur had ordered this punishment, then there was no way out for him. He couldn't kill Arthur, not in a million years.

His knee screamed at him again, and he started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! I am still very tired and I have so many stupid names for this chapter including "ow" an "coldblooded merder" (that's a pun, not a typo) and I really just needed to post this because... Dumbass reasons? I wanted to do it within minutes of posting the last one for some reason that I'm not aware of.
> 
> Kudos and comments are great! I would love some please if you like this stuff that I do!
> 
> Beta is still @wolvaraash and given that I literally wrote out where you can find her like 5 minutes ago I'm not going to do it again.
> 
> Cool beans! All done! Merlin is off the rails!
> 
> EDIT: So WA was foolish and said that she expected Mr. Murder McStabby Pants so how could I resist because I have like 0 (zero) ability to take myself seriously


	9. Whispers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Boy howdy, we've got a wlw subplot now. That wasn't planned.

"We've got all the food we could want for the next year or so," droned Arthur's head of agriculture. What a way to waste a morning.

"Be that as it may, we've had recent influxes in refugees from a tiny duchy from the south. We may need to feed a great deal more people in the near future," countered his head of welfare.

"We don't have to let them in," said the first snappishly.

"Of course you do!" Arthur interrupted angrily. The fifteen heads at the table turned to him suddenly, no longer bored. "You would leave some seventy five thousand people to starve on our borders? This is Camelot. We don't do that here."

"But, sire," the head of commerce said softly, "who knows who they might be. Who knows what they might have in mind when they come in. There's nothing wrong with being careful."

"Compassion," Arthur snarled dangerously, "should always take priority over paranoia."

'That's new,' said the Merlin in his head. 'Never heard you say that before.'

'Shut up,' he grumbled back.

His council looked sufficiently cowed at his biting remark. He stared them down and a few of them coughed nervously. "Alright, now if that's all we have to discuss–"

There was a loud, sudden bang. The council turned their heads again in unison, all to the sudden appearance of a woman lying on the ground, her limbs splayed out. Arthur stood, his presence dominating the room and neatly handing him absolute command.

"All of you, out."

His council streamed for the doors. The representative of the security committee trailed after them. Arthur pointed to her sternly. "You. Stay here."

The two of them walked over to the operative, the representative's sword clanging against her armor as she moved. Arthur was still stuck on the head of commerce's opinion on the refugees. Where did he think most of Camelot came from? Uther's grandfather had invaded just over a century ago, leading to the current royal family. Even Arthur came from elsewhere. He didn't know anyone who could trace their family back any further than five or six generations and still claim that their ancestors had been in Camelot for all eternity.

"Martha," said the representative urgently. "Martha, what happened to you?"

"Sir," Martha replied immediately. But she clearly wasn't speaking to Arthur. Her eyes were locked with that of the representative, not even giving the king of the country she served a second glance. "What time is it? It was dark where I was when–" She stopped and seemed to process everything around her.

"Martha, what happened?" asked the representative again, softer this time.

"The mark caught onto me. He interrogated me for details about why I was there."

"What did you tell him?" asked Arthur, worried. She looked at him for the first time, as if surprised that he was there.

"A lot more than I meant to, sire. I didn't mean to tell him anything, but he used magic." Arthur scowled. Martha ignored him. "Everything he asked, I answered."

"What did he ask about?" asked the representative. Arthur glared at her for undermining his authority.

"How long I'd been tailing him, on whose orders, and why."

"And nothing else?" The representative leaned closer.

"Nothing else."

"And then what happened?" demanded Arthur, butting in again. The representative – her name was starting to come back to him, but he really hadn't talked to her much – shot him an irritated look.

"I took out my knife and attacked him," she answered after a second of hesitation. Arthur didn't miss the disparity between her promptness in answering her king and answering a woman who Arthur hadn't thought held any command over her. "I got his shoulder, and then his ribs. I think. He was bleeding alright, but it was dark and he knocked my aim off."

"But, darling–" The representative cut herself off and glanced, wide-eyed, at Arthur, who gave no indication he heard her slip. 'Darling,' huh? "Your knife is here." Martha furrowed her brow and gave the representative a confused smile.

"No, the sorceror took it from me. How could it be here?"

"You left it here. You took a different knife with you. I saw your blade in our– the armory. It had your mark." The agent frowned.

"I do remember wondering where the inscription was," she admitted. "But I suppose I just didn't think much on it once I was focused on the sorceror." She murmured something too soft for Arthur to hear although he did catch the words "I'm sorry."

The representative – and Arthur had finally remembered her name, Dame Tane, for her introduction had never included her first name – shook her head.

"It's fine. I suppose we ought to be glad, yes?" The two ladies smiled at each other. Arthur felt distinctly like he was an intruder.

They turned to him, asking for permission to depart. He dismissed them and heard Martha's comment as she left.

"I've got to say, Elysande, he was the saddest man I've ever met. Barely even knew who he was."

"None of us know who he is, Mar. That's why I sent you to tail him." They stopped in the middle of the hallway just outside the council chamber. "By the way– Stabbing? Really? What were you thinking?"

"Oi! His majesty told me to, Ely. Also, that isn't what I meant. I don't think that he, himself, knows who he is. Ugh, nevermind." They linked arms and set back off down the hall.

Arthur walked off to summon the rest of his council and explain why he'd sent them all out of the room after the sudden appearance of a young woman in their high security meeting. This was going to be a bit more difficult to explain, given that the security committee was not technically recognized. As far as the majority of the population of Camelot was concerned, his security committee didn't exist.

All in all, this could get messy.

He came across a servant who didn't look like they were doing anything important, given how they were strolling lazily around. He ordered them to find his council members, excluding Dame Tane, and return them to his council chamber. The servant bowed and scurried away obediently.

He waited for them. He wasn't nervous, and he didn't fidget. That had been trained out of him by Uther. But he was... On edge.

Slowly, as if they wanted to torture him, his councillors filed in. They didn't sit. They only stared at him; twenty seven eyes among them (given the head of roads' propensity for running off to do whatever the head of roads wanted to in the spur of the moment, it had only been a matter of time) and every one trained on him.

"I apologize for the abrupt end to our meeting earlier. It was urgent and required my immediate, undivided, private attention. More information will be provided to you when I see that it is necessary to do so. Thank you for joining me here again, you are dismissed." He'd rushed that. He knew he had. The Merlin that whispered to his brain wouldn't stop chiding him for it. But he wanted to get it over with as soon as he possibly could. He didn't have Merlin, well, a real Merlin, to stabilize him anymore. That task fell to him, exactly where it had been for almost twenty years.

He found himself back in his room, although how exactly he'd gotten there was a blur.

'Stop moping, prat,' teased Brain Merlin, who Arthur had quickly realized was more or less just his brain recycling phrases real Merlin had used. Sometimes it was relevant to what he was doing, but mostly it was not. He knew it was a product of his grief, a way to cope with the overwhelming loss that he still didn't want to admit to. But whether it was real or not, hearing Merlin's voice was comforting. It was all he seemed to have left, and so it was what he was going to hang on to.

'You're going to be fine, Arthur. You have the council's respect. You're a great king.'

"You keep telling me that," he murmured aloud. "Why on earth do you have so much faith in me?"

'Because you deserve it,' Brain Merlin chirped back. Arthur could feel him smiling.

"Who told you that?"

'No one. No one needed to.' Arthur shook his head disbelievingly.

"All I can think of is what the sorceror said to me when I talked to him in his cell. How I wasn't doing myself any favors with how I acted. How I wasn't being very noble about how I treated him."

'You did what you had to. No one can ask for more than that,' Merlin's voice reassured him quietly. He'd heard this tone several times before, and for the first time, he didn't believe what was being said.

"No, he was right. I didn't treat him nobly. I usually hold myself to a higher standard." Arthur put his face in his hands. "I just. I was, and am, so worried about you. Not you. Real you. And he managed to get under my skin so easily, and I was so scared he hurt you or that he would hurt Seta. I don't regret killing him, not entirely, but I do wish I had treated him better before his execution."

'There's nothing you can do about it now. And you have someone else to worry about now. Maybe you can try to treat this new sorceror better. Maybe you could repeal the ban on magic.' Arthur winced. He hated hearing Merlin talk about magic, even if it wasn't really him. The two sounded completely incompatible: Merlin was quiet possibly the most harmless person he'd ever met. Magic had been known to cause nothing but harm to Camelot.

"Yeah, maybe," was all he said. Even when he wasn't talking to the real one, he couldn't bring himself to disappoint Merlin. "I won't lie, it won't be easy to pass. Especially after a very high profile execution just a month ago–"

"Who are you talking to, Arthur?" He turned to face Gwen quickly, and tried to school his face into an impassive expression in under a second. He could tell, from her reaction, that he was wildly unsuccessful. She moved with enviable grace to him, with a look of concern on her face. "You're crying."

He scrubbed his face hurriedly, as if trying to erase the fact that she had seen his tears.

"Who were you talking to?" she asked again. He swallowed and forced himself to look her in the eye.

"Merlin."

She squinted at him, clearly suspicious that he'd lost his mind.

"Merlin," she repeated.

"Not real Merlin," he hurried to explain. "But for, oh, I think a couple weeks now, my mind just..." He didn't know how to explain it, exactly. "I can hear him in my head, even though I know it's not real."

She sat down at his table.

"What do you talk about?" she asked gently.

"Everything. Just like we always do– did. He made a jab at me earlier this morning. As if he was standing right next to me." Arthur felt more than saw the sears welling in his eyes. He wiped them away. "I don't... Gwen, I miss him more than I can say. He's never been gone this long."

"Arthur, you've sent out far more search parties already than you would have for almost anyone else. There's nothing else you can do." She sighed. "The two of you have always been joined at the hip. I can't imagine what it's like to have him gone."

"It feels awful, in case you were wondering," he muttered. "It feels almost as bad, maybe worse, than when my father died."

She reached for Arthur's shoulder, as if she was going to pat him comfortingly, before pulling her hand back. He got message easily enough: they were still on very thin ice with each other.

'For crying out loud, Arthur, just talk it out,' groaned the fake Merlin. Arthur blew a raspberry in response.

"Excuse me?" Gwen said angrily.

"Oh." He looked up at her guiltily. "Sorry. That was, uh, not for you. Merlin's an idiot."

"Ah." They sat together in silence, comfortable together for the first time in weeks.

"Gwen?"

"Yes, Arthur?"

"Do you think I was right?"

She shrugged and frowned, clearly not getting it.

"When I executed the sorceror a month and a half ago, did I do the right thing?"

She stared at him. Arthur thought that it looked a bit like she was surprised, but there was some sort of pride in her eyes.

"It's not an easy question to answer, Arthur. Honestly, no, I don't think you did." He hung his head. "I know that you're grieving. I know that you were angry and scared for Merlin when you condemned the sorceror to death, but I think that you were awfully hasty. You barely heard him before tossing him on the pyre. You should have waited, and you shouldn't have let your prejudice against magic cloud your judgement."

"Oh." He hated how small he sounded, and how much he'd lain himself bare to Gwen.

"You can be better than that, you know." She took his hands and caught his gaze. "I've always known so. I have faith that you can make Camelot into a better and more just kingdom than it ever was under Uther."

Arthur sighed and tugged his hands free of Gwen's grasp. He stood and walked a little bit away.

"I don't know where you got that idea. I don't seem to be doing as well as you think I am."

"Merlin," she replied with an easy smile.

"What?"

"I got the idea that you will be the best king that Camelot has ever had from Merlin." She grinned at him again, this time a bit cheekily. "Not to mention my own powers of observation."

He stared at her. Then, shocked, Arthur started to laugh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Drop me a kudos or a comment if you liked it, if not... I don't know what to tell you then. You clearly have awful taste. Kidding, but please don't just leave me a comment that says "this sucks ass, I can't believe you published this." No one has, but this is a sort of pre-emptive strike. Believe me, I tell myself that enough.
> 
> So, uh, what did you think of Elysande and Martha? WolvaraAsh and I are planning on writing a story with just them, outside of the Merlin-verse. We have so much stuff bumbling around our brains with them.
> 
> I hope that Arthur having Merlin's voice in his brain isn't too weird or overdone, but it partially seemed like an opportunity for humor, and also a way to get at some more Arthur-centric angst.
> 
> I go back to school on the 28th of August, so updates will start slowing down then, but my aim is to finish this by the end of the year, if not before then. The last chapter can be a holiday present for you all! I hope you like it when I post it, even though it is very far away.
> 
> You know who my beta is, and where to find her, but I'm still going to say it: You can find @wolvaraash on Facebook, Instagram, Tumblr, and Twitter.
> 
> Love you guys, I'll update soon.


	10. Old Enemies, New Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Depression buddies make tea together

His arm hurt.

A lot.

It wasn't much to be surprised about. The traveler knew why.

That didn't mean it was any less unpleasant.

He'd managed to run into almost every patch of bandits in the woods, every villager with a chip on their shoulder, and the cursed stab wound wasn't doing him any favors. Just the other week he'd had to collapse into a snowdrift because his leg couldn't move without making him almost cry in pain. A couple weeks ago, two points, one on his neck and another on his lower right back, had felt like they'd been stabbed at the same time with a string or strip of metal connecting the two of them that dug into his flesh. He knew it wasn't real – he'd checked – but it felt worse than anything he'd ever experienced.

The land that he had drifted into was rocky and sparse. He was following a trail of sorts, which was marked every few yards with a hastily-built cairn.

Bored, the traveler let his magic flow freely. It wasn't nearly as controlled as he usually kept it. He couldn't remember if he'd ever not kept his power on a short leash.

The cairn he was coming up on kept falling over and falling back up. Everywhere he stepped, he left a trail of wildflowers which bloomed into unnaturally large petals. Pollen swirled to life and formed the faces of long forgotten people, as well as some who haunted his memories and his sleep.

This was what being powerful was, at least to him. Power wasn't something building inside him until it exploded. That was something that killed you, to have something mounting inside until it burst. Power was ambient magic, flowing around him in blissful chaos.

He breathed in the air around him. It felt cleaner than the air in Camelot, as if untouched by civilization. He hardly missed people. He certainly didn't want to see any after everyone he ran into tried to stab him.

And cities were right out.

The cairns turned downhill and he followed them. He didn't want to stop walking for a while; it was only mid-afternoon.

The traveler summoned his staff out of the tear and leaned on it carefully as he clambered down the slope. He already had a torture curse inhibiting him from doing everything he normally could, he didn't need jammed knees on top of everything else. He'd jammed his knees before, and he hadn't been able to walk properly for almost four days.

As he went farther down, the hard rock of the hill transitioned slowly into straggling grass.

He'd never been so far from Camelot, but as it happened, wandering aimlessly was a good way to go places that one had never been before. He was almost glad for the change of scenery; a lot of what he'd seen in the past five months was more beautiful than anything he'd seen before. The snow which had coated everything in sight for so long was finally fading. There were new flowers, flowers that he wasn't even sure the Camelot physician had heard of, that sprung up in every corner and patch of dirt.

It felt uncomfortable to think of his old city, no matter how detached from it he tried to be. He didn't want to think of what was happening in his absence. He didn't want to think of the king's reaction. He remembered how the king had grieved his father, how he raged when the people he loved were in danger.

Trees started to close in on the traveler's path and he smiled. He brushed his hand against the bark of a beech that loomed over him, and it seemed happy in response.

He spotted a small shack constructed with stacked stones near the base of the slope. He hadn't slept in a real building in... far too long. He'd relied on his magic to keep him warm, safe, and even comfortable. He didn't know if he would ever be able to sleep without them. But getting rest in a real bed would be nice, even if he probably couldn't stay for longer than a few nights.

The door, it seemed, was on the other side of the shack, which was certainly an annoyance. In the past he wouldn't have given it a second thought, but he was just so tired. It seemed to have settled into his very bones, and there was no way to shake it.

The traveler trudged down the hill and rested his hand on the door handle. It seemed almost too strenuous to turn it.

He opened the door slowly, letting its awful creaking fill his ears. Strangely enough, the entire shack was not immediately visible, despite his initial conclusions. There was some kind of wall, although it didn't extend all the way to the ceiling. He shuffled around it, relishing in the heat that filled the room. He turned the corner to see–

No.

No, it couldn't be.

He stumbled back outside, tripping a few feet downhill as he did. He slammed the door shut with his mind as adrenaline rushed through him. He held out his staff, ready to attack at a moment's notice.

But when the door to the shack didn't explode open and the traveler didn't find himself on the receiving end of a terrifying and brutal magical attack, he slowly lowered his staff. He wondered if he was hallucinating out of a complete lack of human contact.

There were only so many ways to find out.

He crept back towards the shack, using his magic to muffle any noise he made. He eased the door open, muting it as well. He peered around the half-wall.

And there she was, still sitting there silently in a chair that looked older than the Camelot citadel. He emerged, allowing himself to come into full view of...

"Morgana?"

She looked up dully, dark shadows hanging under her eyes. She looked almost as empty as the traveler felt. Her eyes focused slowly on him.

"Who are you?"

He moved closer slowly, as if he was worried about scaring a wild animal. She made no move to attack him, so he kneeled next to her.

"Just a friend, Morgana." He sighed. He had never wanted to be Morgana's enemy per se, but she had made so many decisions that endangered Arthur and Camelot. And now she looked so broken inside, as if she was simply hollow. She looked away.

"I don't have any friends. I haven't had any for a long time. There seem to only be those who agree with me and those who don't." She looked back at him. "Which one do you fall into?"

"Both. Neither." He shook his head. "I don't know."

She held his gaze with her dead, unblinking eyes.

"Neither did he," she said sadly.

"He?"

She bit her lip, her eyes moving quickly for the first time. Morgana looked nothing if not scared, which was not something that the traveler had known her to be. Ever.

"He took my magic away." Tears started to fill her eyes and she grabbed his hand desperately. "I don't know what to do now. I need it back."

"How did he do this?" He rubbed her back with his free hand.

"A device of some sort," she stuttered as she started to sob. "He made it. He used some of his own magic to add to the mechanical thing itself. Impressive, but terrifying. Too clever for his own good."

"Why?"

"It endangers everyone with magic, now that he's built it. We just wanted to take Emrys' magic. It's, it was, important." Her old vigor returned to her face just a bit, and the traveler was glad to see it, even if she was talking about stealing the only thing that made him important. "Magic is being... Is being..." Her forehead wrinkled, as if she was trying to remember what she used to spit with violent fervor. He bit his lip and tried to revitalize her somehow, to kick-start her brain into functioning again. He shoved a fraction of his magic through their hands.

"Magic is being what?"

She jolted, as if possessed with a sudden clarity, and he yanked his hand out of her grip, stumbling back in fear.

"Hunted."

"Well," he said matter-of-factly, despite the fact that there really wasn't anything to be matter-of-fact about. "I guess you're... Not wrong."

She pushed herself up from the chair imperiously and lifted her chin like the Morgana he knew.

"Of course I'm not." 

He laughed in reply, trying not to sound too nervous.

"Of course." He looked around, hoping to see a kettle or something. "Do you mind if I try to cook something? I'm starving."

"Not at all. I don't have much in here though. It's largely filled with dust and poorly made furniture." She smirked. "You're welcome to whatever I have."

He waved his hand, summoning tea to his hand and a kind of steak to the low table. Morgana sat on the floor next to him and they shared it eagerly. They were both pleasantly surprised at how good it tasted and how tenderly it was cooked, as neither one of them had eaten something so delicious in a very long time.

They sat together for a long while, almost unable to move because of how full they were. The traveler's hand felt a bit like it was being crushed between two large boulders, and he held it close to his chest, as if he might protect it that way. Morgana seemed somewhat fascinated with him and what he was doing, as she stared at him constantly until she finally decided to speak up.

"You never told me your name."

"I don't need to; it's not important."

"Well, you know mine. I should think that's it's a basic courtesy to grant me the same knowledge." She tossed her hair.

"I don't..." He trailed off. He didn't know exactly how to explain how he had felt separated from his name and then hadn't used one in almost half a year. He was fairly certain that wasn't a common occurrence. 

His old enemy, who seemed so far gone and at the same time utterly unchanged, studied him evenly. She had always been eerily intelligent, but seeing her read him like a book, although he hoped it was more like reading a book in an old, strange dialect and an outdated vocabulary, was frightening. They seemed to be at peace, if nothing else. If she found how who he– no, what he'd done to her in past, he was certain that would change.

"Alright, fine. I'll leave it for now."

"Thanks, milady," he murmured, ignoring the thinly veiled threat in her words.

They cleaned up their meal and then proceeded to clean almost everything else too over the course of the next week, which they both decided they were pretty impressed with, given how Morgana had been barely more than a depressed potted plant for at least a week and the traveler had been hollowed out with an acute emptiness where his stomach should have been for far longer than that. And every once in a while, when they were in the middle of dusting shelves or scraping stains off walls, one of them would sag under the weight of heavy, hidden regrets. Sometimes they would do something slightly more injurious like biting themselves or hitting their head against a table, but it felt better than facing everything that pummeled their memories and self-worth. Neither one of them did anything to help the other beyond gently removing their hands from their mouths or guiding them to a chair, but it was what they needed.

And if they heard each other cry when they woke up from nightmares in the wee hours of the morning, nothing needed to be said other than asking if they could do with some tea.

It was an oddly warm morning when the traveler woke up and knew immediately that he wouldn't be able to move that day. His back felt like it was broken, his leg seemed to be in the process of losing all circulation, even if he could see that it wasn't purple yet, and his head felt like he'd covered it in snow for several hours. This was, undoubtedly, one of the worst days that he'd ever had.

Not to mention that even if he had felt in perfect health, he didn't see the point in moving.

So he lay on his hard mattress silently, staring at the ceiling and watching the sun slowly light it up. It was so relaxing that he found himself almost dropping off again. He wanted to capture the dawn's light and keep it in a bottle for a rainy day, but he couldn't muster the energy to even lift his arm. He wasn't quite sure what his opinion on speaking was, as of then. It sounded like something that he wouldn't enjoy.

He let the more extravagant words included in his vocabulary bumble around his brain without really forming sentences, content to think of how they sounded like loops or bubbles. He couldn't bring himself to move, so this was as good any way to occupy himself: it required minimal effort and absolutely no movement.

When Morgana finally got up and stumbled around the shack like a poorly-done necromancy experiment, she didn't say much about her housemate and how bad he looked.

She only heated up some water, put lemon balm and wild mint in a chipped ceramic mug, and waited for the tea to be ready.

When she finally came over to his bedside, the traveler didn't even try to drink it. Given that he was lying down, the only thing he was likely to accomplish was burning his chest with scalding hot tea.

"Come on, sit up."

Her voice seemed to almost hurt his ears, like something was pressing on them.

"Can't," he croaked. She shot him a look as if to say 'really? Come on, you're better than that' and hooked her arms under his to pull him up and lean him against a wall.

"There. Now drink your tea; it's your favorite." He obliged and started to gulp it down before Morgana took it away from him and his mouth started to burn. "Stop that. Not all at once."

He tried to breathe clearly and failed spectacularly. He gagged and coughed harshly, which didn't feel like it did more than make his throat sore.

"What's wrong?" she demanded in her no-nonsense way. He grumbled under his breath, as if he didn't want her to hear, which he knew was stupid. Nevertheless, he didn't want to admit how useless he was. "Speak up. I can't help if I don't know what's wrong."

It was odd to see her like this; she was aloof and bitter but still desperate to help people that she cared for. More than that, she had some odd desire to help someone who she barely knew. It was the aftermath of the unicorn's death all over again, when Morgana had gone behind Uther's back to feed the refugees.

"It's a curse," he replied quietly. He lifted his shirt to show her the glaring white scar on his ribs, and then dropped it quickly. "Fuck, that hurts."

"How can it be lifted?" When he looked at her, confusion written all over his features, she scoffed. "I hate to say it, but I like you. So I'm going to make sure that this doesn't kill you."

He laughed back, wheezing through his nose hysterically.

"You have to kill whoever's responsible. But it's a friend of mine. I won't do it."

"I can do it for you," she offered.

"Morgana, no." He glowered at her. She laughed again.

"Worth a try."

Their conversation faded into comfortable silence from there. The traveler sipped his tea every once in a while and hummed bar songs to himself. It was good tea, especially for being made purely with whatever they found growing around them. He missed the food he came home to each day for years, though. It hadn't been luxury, but he'd never been able to afford any sort of luxury. It was just a way of feeling wanted, like he was part of something. Part of a family of ridiculous men and having someone who was guaranteed to watch his back.

All he had here was a woman who was sure to kill him. Sure to see him suffer if she knew what he had done to her. But she was taking care of him as best she could.

He didn't quite know what to make of it all.

"Is it Craig?" she asked out of the blue. He barely even understood what she'd said.

"What?"

"Is your name Craig?"

"No," he replied, perplexed. "Why on earth would you think my name is Craig?"

"Hey, I've got nothing to go on. I'm just guessing random names." She smirked at him, and he glared back.

"Morgana, you said you'd leave it."

"No, I said I would leave it 'for now.' It's been over a week since then. 'For now' is kind of over." The traveler could do nothing but close his eyes in exasperation as Morgana chuckled mercilessly.

"Can I get an extension or something?" he groaned.

"No promises," she replied as she took the tea away and stood up. "Get some sleep now. You look like shit."

"Thanks."

"No, really. Shut up and go to sleep."

He managed to nod, albeit a bit more limply than he would have if he had been feeling better, and pulled himself into a position that was more comfortable for sleeping. He touched his forehead absently and felt sweat on it. It was as good a sign as any that, for once, he really needed to listen to a revenge-driven ex-sorceress.

His sleep was fitful at best, or downright nonexistent at worst, but he managed to dream all the same.

-

He couldn't move his arms or legs, which was enough to induce panic at the best of times, but he could also feel a post of wood digging into his back and hear the sound of dry grass being crushed under his feet. As everything came into view, he was left with one unquestionable conclusion: he was on the pyre again. He saw the poor, young guard coming for him with a torch again. He was young, maybe eighteen, maybe a year or two older, if memory served. And he was the intrument of Mer – no, not that, anything but that – of his murder.

The torch barely touched the pyre before it flared up in angry, hungry flames.

The fire licked at his pant legs, as if trying to get a taste of him before eating him whole. He gulped, terrified. He'd had dreams of being burnt alive for years, maybe even since he'd been told of what his magic meant and what Camelot was, but this was so much worse because it had been closer to happening than Percival's shave was to his head.

He looked back at the guard who had lit him up. He didn't know why. The poor boy was only doing what his sovereign commanded him to do, but all the same, he felt that he needed to look at the boy's face.

Past the flames, past that helmet that trapped him in the anonymity of a Camelot guard, the traveler saw the boy's face. More than that, he saw his own face staring him in the eye as he burned.

So when he finally was consumed by the fire, it was not the pain that made him scream.

He had led himself to his own grave; he'd literally lit his own pyre.

So, all in all, he felt pretty justified in screaming his head off.

-

When he woke, still drenched in sweat and trembling like a cornered rodent, he couldn't bring himself to even call Morgana to help him back to reality. He needed to be able to do this on his own.

Alright. Okay. Five things that he could see.

Morgana's bed, the chair, the half wall, his feet, the ceiling.

He couldn't feel any difference yet, but he knew from his experiences of guiding shell-shocked people back into tranquility that it didn't work as quickly as some made it out to.

Four things he could hear.

Songbirds, the wind, Morgana’s footsteps, his heartbeat.

His breathing slowed down, almost to a speed that he was satisfied with. He squeezed his eyes shut.

Three things he could feel.

The hard mattress of his bed, the lightness in his hands, his teeth on his tongue.

His heart was still hammering away in his chest with no indication that it was going to slow down anytime soon. He rolled his hands into fists and took a deep, shuddering breath.

Two things he could smell.

Tea, the old wood of the table.

He was fine. He was fine. He was fine. Nothing was going to happen to him here, not with all the wards that he’d placed around the shack.

One thing he could taste.

The bile in his throat. Ew.

He still wasn’t sure he was okay to move around, but he needed to get something, anything, done. He just needed to feel like he was doing something, rather than lying around lazily for hours on end.

So he inched out of bed and set himself to cleaning their kitchen area.

It was a small task, given that there wasn’t much dust because of how often they used it and there wasn’t much there to clean to begin with. They simply didn't own enough to make it too messy.

All the same, he wiped the table down with a wet rag a few times then cleaned the candleholder and their two forks and a knife that had been left behind in the shack by whoever had lived there before them. He hummed music he'd heard at a banquet as he scrubbed at the cheap metal. It shifted ever so slightly at a few descending notes to a drinking song that the knights sang when they were drunk off their asses.

"’s death’s long kiss a richer kiss," he mumbled tunefully, "Than mine was wont to be– Or have you gone to some far bliss, and quite forgotten me…”

He heard the door to their shack open and rattle of sticks against each other.

“A drinking song? Are you alright?”

He sighed.

“No, but I think I’m getting there. Or I will at some point. I’m just tired.” Morgana stared him down, clearly not buying what he was selling. “I just want to clean something up, to do something.”

“You can help me start a fire and cook dinner, if that’s enough to keep you occupied.” She held out her armful of sticks to him, and he took it gladly. They both went about their tasks amiably in a comfortable silence, barring the sound of fire bursting into existence or a stew bubbling. “I’m worried about you, you know.”

“I’m fine.”

She glared at him fiercely.

“Don’t act like I’m an idiot. Your curse has been getting worse, you couldn’t even move this morning, and you just keep getting sadder.” She let the wooden stirring spoon come to a stop in the pot and she put her hands on her hips. “I feel like I’ve known you for far longer than just a week. I need you to be honest with me on several counts, and then I’ll finish up dinner and you can mope at the table.”

He nodded grudgingly and met her eyes.

“Question one is this: could this curse kill you?” The traveler winced at how baldly she’d put it out there, but he had promised to answer her questions, so he forced himself to reply.

“On its own, no. But I could do something drastic if it gets bad enough, or I might be weaker or less focused in a fight.” He pressed his mouth into a line. “I guess the answer is yes.”

“Shit,” Morgana breathed. “Alright. On to question two. Tell me your name.”

“That’s not a question,” he said, trying to avoid it.

“Fine, you asshole. What’s your name?”

“No.”

“You said you’d answer.”

“I can’t answer this.”

“Why not?”

“Because I can’t! You might be angry with me.” He suddenly found a spot on their dirt floor remarkably fascinating.

“For telling me what your name is? Friend, I won’t be angry to hear the truth.” She lifted her chin. “Or, if I am, I have a damn good reason to be.”

“I don’t want to.”

She dropped her gaze and sighed.

“Alright. Sorry.”

“Next question?”

“Next question.”

As Morgana continued to stir the pot of stew, she and the traveler volleyed questions back and forth. They ate slowly, pausing every few bites to ask something else. When they finally finished their meal and had run out of questions to badger each other with, they cleared the table and cocooned themselves in their blankets.

-

He woke up all too soon. He groaned and snuggled closer into his blankets, squeezing his eyes shut against the morning sun.

He had to get up. If he didn’t on his own, he would have to face Gaius and his eyebrows. And honestly, nothing was more terrifying than Gaius’ eyebrows. Well, his eyebrows and Gwen’s disapproval.

He shoved the covers off and got dressed, still half asleep.

The door was open, oddly enough, but he didn’t think much of it. How much had he had to drink the night before? He couldn’t remember a thing.

“Gaius?” His voice sounded almost like it was underwater. He rubbed his ears a bit concernedly. He glanced around, looking for any sign that the old physician was around. After a couple seconds of waiting for a response and getting none, he shrugged and moved on to waking up the ridiculous king.

There was a smile on his face, but he didn’t know why. There was just something about the place, about Camelot, that made him giddy.

He bustled into the king’s room, laughing hysterically to himself almost under his breath. He felt his shoulders shake in his uncontrollable mirth and tried to still them with almost no success.

“Arthur! Let’s have you lazy daisy!” He smacked his palm to his forehead and grumbled. That was a really stupid way to wake up a sovereign. “Arthur? Come on, we have things to get done!”

Abruptly, the light that streamed through the windows, heralding a new day, disappeared completely, leaving him in total darkness. He cursed and muttered a few words to himself, satisfied when a flame burst to life in his hand. He held it aloft above his head and searched the room for Arthur. He was nowhere to be found. Maybe outside.

The door, the massive door that he had just opened, was shut and locked. He frowned. Something wanted him trapped in there, where he couldn’t escape. Something wanted to separate him from Arthur. Something…

Something must want Arthur dead.

The flame in his hand went out, but he could feel his magic building inside of him as if it was still trying to carry it around. It had to be blocked somehow.

It didn’t matter. He knew Arthur’s room well enough to navigate it blind. Maybe if got to the window, he could smash it and get out. Arthur wouldn’t be too happy about his window, but other things took priority. Namely, not being trapped in Arthur’s room.

Not that he would normally be complaining, if Arthur was actually there.

He weaved through the room, carefully avoiding any chairs or other miscellaneous furniture.

He reached a hand out and felt his fingers brush against stone. He’d made it to the wall, which was probably enough to make him do some sort of happy dance, although he miraculously restrained himself. He skimmed his hands along it, searching for the window that he knew to be there.

Suddenly, his hand fell through air, and he knew he’d found it.

His magic, which still burned under his skin, was beginning to make him feel a bit like he had a fever. He needed to get it out and use it before something permanent and dangerous happened. Not that he knew what it would do, but, to quote Arthur, better safe than sorry.

The window was closed, as expected, and he was fairly sure that he didn’t have time to find the latch. He balled up his jacket and slammed his hand into the glass.

At first, nothing happened. It didn’t sound like anything was breaking nor did it sound like it had even been hit. In fact, there was no sound at all. Nothing moved.

Then, after about a second or two of delay, the glass exploded away from him, swamping his eyes in light again. He squeezed them shut and covered his head, trying to escape back into the comfortable darkness.

Slowly, so slowly, in fact, he felt like he could probably draw a medical process for one of Gaius’ books, movement by movement, of it, he opened his eyes. It was almost exactly as bright as he had expected. It was certainly dimmer, though. He stuck his head out the window and looked around for the king.

There he was!

Out on the balcony, a mere fifty, maybe sixty feet away. Surrounded by nobles and knights, his hand raised stiffly. Everyone had their eyes fixed on the courtyard below, which could only mean…

An execution.

He clambered out of the window, edging along the tiny ledge just below it. He hugged the side of castle, more than a little terrified of falling. But he had to get to that idiot with a crown, he just had to.

Out of curiosity, he glanced down to see whose head was on the chopping block today.

His stomach came up to his throat and he looked away, on the verge of hyperventilation.

By the gods, the ground was far away.

Resolving not to look down again, he slid his feet along the ledge, gripping the wall only at the slim dip in the wall at the mortar. He swallowed nervously.

“Arthur!” he shouted, praying that he’d be heard.

The king didn’t look round. He only closed his eyes sadly, as if grieving.

“Arthur!” he tried again. “Help! I was trapped in your room!”

Still nothing.

“Over here! Arthur! By your window!” He attempted to lift one of his arms and wave, but he almost lost his balance. He clutched at the castle, staring at Arthur desperately. “Please! I need your help!”

Finally, the sovereign looked his way, an expression halfway between hope and abject despair twisting his features into something that made the wayward manservant clinging to a slab of stone feel on the verge of tears. But when Arthur finally glimpsed him, something changed instantly. He was, undoubtedly, happy beyond belief.

“Merlin!” he yelled back. His hand dropped involuntarily as he rushed to the edge of the balcony, surely to climb over and retrieve the poor bloke hanging off the side of the wall. “Merlin, where on earth have you been?”

Merlin.

Merlin.

Merlin.

The two dreadful syllables thundered through his head, ringing like the bells of Camelot.

He’d almost forgotten his own name. How had he done that? And yet, he hadn’t forgotten Arthur’s. No, he could never forget Arthur’s name, not if a million years passed him by.

As he felt everything rush back into his life and his mind, his feet slipped from the wall and his hand fell to his sides numbly.

He almost didn’t realize when he didn’t have the wall to hold him up anymore.

Merlin.

It still felt alien to his ears.

Merlin!

That wasn’t his mind, though. His mind tended not to yell at him, although he occasionally yelled at it. Oh, it would berate and belittle him, mock him or put him down, but it didn’t yell at him. He’d never been able to figure out if that made it better or worse.

“Merlin!”

It was Arthur who yelled at him, and he was yelling now, as Merlin plummeted to the flagstones of the courtyard. Then again, that wasn’t really where he was falling. No, he was falling directly onto the pile of sticks where the condemned would be burned. And if he was right, which he liked to think that he was, at least most of the time, the moment that Arthur had lowered his hand was when a guard stepped forward with a torch.

“Arthur!” he screamed back, his voice ragged as if someone had torn it out of his throat and ripped it to shreds. His magic was burning him up. He just needed to force it out, but he couldn’t. There was no avenue for it to escape down, no goal for it to accomplish. It was just stuck under the surface, boiling him away.

As he expected, he landed on the pyre. What was far more surprising that, far more terrifying, was that the pole at the center had an almost magnetic pull to it which dragged him to it and snapped his hand around it.

The guard’s torch touched the edge of the pyre, and all he could do was scream Arthur’s name as his magic combusted with the touch of the flames.

-

“ARTHUR!” he screeched as he flailed on the solid mattress. His right hand, which was still far more delicate than he would have liked, banged on the ground painfully. “ARTHUR!”

Before he really knew what was happening or how it had, he had rolled off the bed altogether and he landed harshly on his shoulder.

“Stop!” came a steady, authoritative voice from… somewhere above him. “Stop doing that. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“Morgana?” he wheezed, the wind knocked out of him.

“Yeah, I’m here.” She rolled him onto his back, probably hoping that he’d breathe better that way. “You were screaming in your sleep. Everything alright?”

He looked at her, watching her face. It was stony, colder than it had been for a while, and he could see her questions burning up her patience.

“No,” he replied quietly. “Everything is definitely not alright.”

Morgana sat down on the floor with him, looking at him like he’d turned purple, collected over two hundred arms without pairs, wrapped them up with a ribbon and a rose, and handed them to her as a gift in the dead of night.

“Can you…” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Maybe be a bit more specific?”

“I had a nightmare,” he replied, although he knew that it barely scratched the surface of what he’d had.

“I’d kind of figured that out on my own, thanks.”

He glared at her. “If you have something to say, just say it, will you?”

“Fine,” she snapped. She lifted her chin. “Who’s Arthur?”

“You sound like you already know the answer.”

“Well, I’m hoping, against all higher reasoning, I might add, that the Arthur that you were crying out for in your sleep isn’t my brother, the king of Camelot, who hates magic and will, without any doubt, kill you.” She folded her arms and it almost seemed like she smiled. “You know. For your sake.”

He sighed.

“No, sorry. That’s the one.”

Morgana slammed her hand down on the ground. “You idiot! Why the hell…”

“He’s my friend!”

They scowled at each other.

“Your ‘friend?’ Are you kidding me?” She paused, just long enough for her to seem like she was wrapping her head around something but too short for the traveler to interrupt. “Wait, hang on. You said that the person responsible for your curse was a friend of yours. Is Arthur- Did Arthur do this to you?!”

She gestured vaguely at him.

“No!” 

Morgana did her best impersonation of Gaius’ skepticism and he flinched. 

“Well,” he trailed off. “Yes.”

“I really am going to kill him,” she snarled, clenching her fists.

“I won’t let you.” His voice was steady, deadly.

“I’m not asking for permission.” Even without her magic, Morgana was terrifying. Her eyes were clearest they’d ever been since the two of them had started living together, and she seemed to be made of sharp edges. Her gaze felt like a death sentence and actually meeting her eyes was like an assassination.

“I never said you were.”

They held each other’s gaze, not speaking. Morgana was the first to look away, but only after almost a solid minute of it.

“Shit,” she said after a few more seconds. “You’re Merlin, aren’t you.”

He studied his hands intensely. He looked up nervously, relieved to see that her eyes were closed.

“Yes.”

“I don’t suppose that you were going to tell me at any point, were you?” She still wouldn’t look at him.

“No! I wasn’t. I wasn’t going to tell you that. I thought you’d kill me, Morgana!” He rubbed his shoulder, wincing. “Not to mention that it doesn’t matter.”

“First, do you see me killing you right now? No, you don’t. Calm your shit.” She stirred slowly, turning to him like a fuse burning down to a bomb. “Also, it ‘doesn’t matter?’ What the HELL?! Of course it matters!”

His hands flew up defensively.

“The only thing important about me is my magic!” he blurted angrily before he could stop himself. “No one cares about me or who I am!” He dropped his head into his hands. “So, no, it doesn’t matter, Morgana. As soon as people learn about my magic, it’s all anyone gives a damn about.”

“Shut up, Merlin.”

“That’s your brother’s line.”

“No really, shut up. What makes you so special?” she spat. “I knew that if I told anyone, I’d be executed. You’re no different.”

He squeezed his eyes shut and bit the inside of his cheek.

“No, Morgana, I’m…” He looked away and his voice lowered to a mumble. 

“I’m Emrys.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Sorry it took so long to get done, but this is twice the length of my usual chapters and I worked really hard on it, so I hope you like it! For clarification, this is not the shack Morgana lives in during the show. She moved. She lives in a rocky hill side now. It's not similar.
> 
> I will probably not get much up for at least a month, sorry, but high school's a bitch. Even though I love it.
> 
> My beta is WolvaraAsh and she's on everything, all under the same name, so go check her out!
> 
> Drop me some kudos or a comment if you liked this!


	11. You Stole My Dream.  No, Really.  Give It Back.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> do Not adopt problem children accidentally, this has been a PSA also names are bad

Seta, it turned out, was a great deal smarter than almost anyone else in court.

Arthur had only discovered this a couple months ago, when he'd asked the boy to stop actually being a servant like he was originally supposed to be. Now, the only responsibilities he had were to occasionally get some herbs from the lower town (neither Arthur nor anyone else would let him go outside the city without a full-on armored guard) or carrying messages across the castle.

This sudden influx in his free time had allowed him to get into a great deal more trouble than Arthur was completely prepared to deal with. He'd built a ridiculously complex contraption - twice! - to dump water onto a particularly snobbish councilor's head, devised a mixture of Gaius' chemicals that smelled worse than death and rolled it at some of the less-than-polite knights in training, and had also sent quite a few very rude letters to some of the courtiers. Arthur hadn't really been able to figure out how to stop him, and the only punishment that he could use was a private discussion now that he'd backed himself into a corner after one exceptionally stupid decision, so the thirteen year old boy was free to do as he pleased. Arthur wished he'd been better at denying him the opportunity to do so, especially after covering him after the incident with Lord Huidemar.

But whether he actually wanted to stop him or not, he didn't, which was what really seemed to matter.

Even when he set his cat loose in the kitchens, sending the cook clambering up on top of a chair.

Even when he moved every piece of furniture in the dining hall three inches to the left.

Even when he left fifty-two small, wooden dragons in the armory.

The only thing that Arthur really put his foot down about was if Seta ever made Gwen's life difficult. Gwen was, as it stood, the only person who could really control him, probably because she had the most experience with children.

Arthur had, thankfully, cleared all his meetings for the day. He didn't want to have to talk to his council about his recent policy decisions, nearly all of which they seemed to disagree with, or have to endure their droning, all of which was very long.

So, glad for an empty day, he wandered out to the training grounds to have something to do.

"I could beat you in one hit," shot a voice before Arthur could see the targets.

"I wouldn't even need to fight with you," replied another coolly, and Arthur felt dread settle into his stomach. He knew exactly who that was. He also didn't want to be reminded of the first time he'd fought with Merlin, because all he could think of was how he'd failed to find him in over six months.

"Why? Are you some sort of girl, too prissy to fight?" snapped a third voice. This one seemed older and deeper, probably someone at least a few years Seta's senior. Arthur stepped around the corner to see three older boys - eighteen, maybe twenty, if he had to guess - cornering Seta by the wall. Seta looked very pale and nervous, although he was trying not to show it. He was about to step in when the younger boy caught his eye and shook his head minutely; he didn't want an intervention, he wanted to end the problem. Arthur nodded back and moved to stand in the blind spot of the three bullies.

"Not at all," Seta answered in the tone that meant he was about to cause headache-inducing trouble to others. "I'm just a great deal cleverer than you are."

With that, he yanked on a string dangling by his head which rung a bell. Arthur could hear a lot of stuff all running into each other, but couldn't pick anything out as it went. After a couple seconds, however, a bucket fell over above them, tipping out mice. The mice all seemed to be alive and well, if a bit dazed, but the knights in training screeched in terror and sprinted off in the direction of the armory, flapping their hands about their heads in an attempt to get all the mice off.

Arthur found himself laughing uproariously, grinning like he was Seta's age again. Not that he could remember smiling that much then, but it was really the idea of being that carefree, rather than the practice of it.

"That was wonderful, Seta. How on earth did you know to set it up here?"

The boy, who was still so short, smiled, although he actually looked rather frightened.

"You couldn't tell that I provoked the whole thing?"

Arthur frowned.

"You did?"

"Yeah, I had to. I needed to do something to get them to leave me alone." All of the sudden, Arthur realized that Seta, for all of his bravado, was still living in almost perpetual fear about something or other. He'd seemed to become so confident it the time since he'd brought Arthur's breakfast in, but he was still, in reality, a small, scared kid.

"Okay." Arthur held out a hand to him, and Seta clung to it. "I've got a free day, today. You want to steal some bread rolls from the kitchen with me? I’m really hungry.”

Seta nodded eagerly and they promptly set off for the kitchens. Upon arriving they were faced with the terrifying back of the head cook.

Arthur gestured towards himself and then towards the cook. He then pointed Seta towards the rolls - fresh out of the oven and cooling on the counter. Seta gave a nod, understanding the mission. 

With that, Arthur stood up and lazily rolled into the cook’s field of view. She bowed quickly, surprised to see the king.

“Sire! I wasn’t expecting you!”

“It’s okay,” he said grinning, “I was just wondering if you could make me a meat pie for dinner?”

Arthur glanced behind the cook and saw Seta creep along the floor towards the cooling rolls and grab four of them. Seta flashed him a thumbs up and slowly crept back out of the kitchen. 

“Of course I can! Anything for you!”

Arthur looked back at the cook and beamed.

“Wonderful!” He paused a moment, thinking. “...Marge! Thank you so much!”

With that he strode out of the kitchen, fairly certain he had gotten the cook’s name right - and entirely missing her look of annoyance regarding the fact that he had called her “Marge” and not her actual name, “Morge.”

Out in the hallway, Arthur and Seta regrouped and Seta handed him one bread roll - content with keeping the other three to himself. He then ran off, wary of the cook’s wrath and clearly not in the mood to spend the rest of his day around an adult.

-

It might’ve been nice to spend more time with Seta, but Arthur didn’t chase after him and instead bid him a good afternoon and sought out Gwen.

He needed advice more than he needed anything else at the moment, and there were only so many places he could get it. And with Merlin gone... Well. With Merlin gone, he could barely get it anywhere.

He tried not to look too much like he didn't know where he was going, tried to subtly look through doorways down passages instead of charging through them, but he still imagined that he looked rather mad the way he was rushing about.

Finally, after running through half the castle and still not finding Gwen, he flagged down a servant and told him to bring Gwenivere to Arthur's room once the servant found her.

Arthur walked back to his room slowly, still unaccustomed to his lack of a shadow. After Merlin had been just two steps behind him for over six years, it was still taking him ages to get used to his absence. Every once in a while, when he noticed something interesting, he still reached backwards to grab Merlin's sleeve, only for his hand to close on empty air.

'You're never alone,' murmured the Merlin who haunted his head. At this point, it was more of a curse than a helpful coping mechanism, because it only served to remind him of his loss, but he still liked to hear Merlin's voice. He ignored it, as he had for the last few weeks.

When he arrived back at his room it was still empty, so he looked over the reports on his desk while he waited. There wasn't much to write home about; only a few reports on how the refugees were doing, a list of the recently committed crimes and current investigations, and nearly five pages of complaints about various topics, mostly involving Seta. Arthur sighed and set them all aside for later.

But there were still a few more pieces of paper under a copy of Dame Tane's seal, which could only mean a security report.

He unfolded the first sheet and leaned into his hand.

'The security committee appointed and created by His Most Glorious...' Arthur skipped the introduction as usual. He knew that he could to ask whoever drafted the reports to just stop including it, but he supposed it was good to have a formal way to address it. 'The committee has not, as of the day that this is written, the Twenty Second of March, been able to find the sorceror that our agent had previously confronted. He seems to not be anywhere inside or near Camelot, nor any other major city. The committee will not put an end to the alert for him, unless His Majesty commands it, but the committee doubts that he will be found unless he wishes to be found. The committee's analysts have been going over reports of his activity and have concluded that his power in unmatched in other records of sorcery for at least the last fifty years. While his motivation is unclear, he seems to be drawn to towns and cities in a time of illness, danger, or grief. Some of the more superstitious consultants have suggested he may actually be some sort of spirit, although the committee has no concrete evidence to support this as of now. The committee awaits the action recommended by His Majesty King Arthur Pendragon.'

Three days had passed since it had been written. It wasn't particularly time sensitive, but Arthur wished that there was some sort of way to get the reports separately.

He put it into its own pile for the time being and pulled the second report off the stack.

It was written in an unfamiliar hand, with squat letters and sharp points as the stems of the p's and q's. Point of fact, it was half a step away from being illegible. Arthur scanned the page for a name, symbol, anything to indicate who it was from, and finally noticed a signature crammed into the bottom right corner.

'Dame Elysande Tane.'

If she had taken the time to write it out herself, it was probably something she wanted to keep out of prying eyes. Maybe it was something dangerous, maybe it was just something that she wanted to stay private. Whatever it was, it was probably important, so Arthur moved back to the top of the page and slowly tried to decipher the handwriting.

'Arthur, I'd like to talk to you alone at some point in the next week, today being March twenty-third. It's not dreadfully urgent but still needs to be addressed, and at some point later on I'd like to have a meal with you. Hopefully we'll be able to avoid politics then. For the more imminent meeting, I propose the Rising Sun. Busy, yes, but that also means we won't be overheard. If you find it necessary, bring along a companion. I'll buy.'

And there was her signature in the corner, as if she'd forgotten to tell him who was asking for a meeting. He almost laughed. Her sense of propriety was nearly as bad as Merlin's.

As if he'd been summoned, Merlin's voice mumbled something about a trap. Arthur didn't pay attention.

He grabbed another sheet of paper from his desk and began to write out a reply to propose a date and time.

He wasn't quite sure about Dame Tane yet, given how she seemed to have something vaguely resembling total, frightening command over the organization responsible for monitering everything inside (and outside) the kingdom. She was the head of the security committee, of course, but Arthur pondered what she could do with the men and women employed by it. After all, they were some of the smartest people in Camelot, and she was a woman of unrivaled tenacity and tactical thinking. The committee itself was something that he knew Uther would never have allowed because it had almost as much authority and power as the throne. Nevertheless, it was important to have, and a necessary risk.

It was then that the door opened, because it seemed that in Merlin's absence, everyone was making sure to throw the rules under the bus as well.

"You can't just barge in here-" he snapped before realizing that Gwen was the one who had opened the door. "Oh, sorry. Thank you for coming by."

She waved it off. "No problem. What's this about?"

Arthur gestured for her to sit down. She only leaned on the table.

"It's..." He cracked his knuckles nervously. "Well, it's about a lot of stuff."

"Thanks, Arthur, that really tells me everything I need to know," she griped at him, but she was smiling.

"Sorry. But between the security committee, Merlin still being missing, and my dreams, I don't know where to start." He sighed. "And they all feel like they connect, so we can't go topic by topic."

"You're still having nightmares?" Gwen asked, frowning. Arthur nodded. "Are you doing okay?"

"Of course I am," he lied.

"Arthur. Don't be ridiculous." She stared him. "The man who, for nearly six years, hasn't been more than three feet from you has now been missing for almost half a year. Of course you're not doing alright. So do me a favor and don't insult my intelligence any further by pretending otherwise."

Arthur grimaced in reply. "Sorry."

"It's fine."

"That's not– I mean, that's not everything that I'm sorry about. I fucked up, Gwen." He put his face in his hands. "I fucked up on so many different levels. With you, in particular. Even before Merlin disappeared and you tried to talk me out of executing someone who I shouldn't have executed, I really ruined everything about our relationship. We were going out together, and then we weren't, and then we were, and I just kept screwing up. I'm sorry about how I acted. I'm sorry that I didn't try harder to make it work."

He got up and started pacing around anxiously, dragging his hands through his hair.

"Then instead of dealing with the fact that it was my fault, I just stopped talking to you, which was completely unacceptable. So I'm sorry about that, too." Arthur glanced back to Gwen's face, which was completely and uncharacteristically unreadable. He looked away again. "And then then the next time we spoke was when I was going to execute the sorceror. I totally disregarded what you and everyone else had to say, went against my better judgement, and generally made a complete ass of myself. I'm sorry about that and a lot more, too, and–"

Gwen put a hand on his shoulder and sat him down on his bed.

"Arthur, stop."

"But I–"

"I know you're sorry. And you did really screw up." She squeezed his shoulder reassuringly. "Merlin has been your impulse control for ages. I'm not saying that excuses everything you did, because it doesn't and I'm glad you're taking responsibility for it, but I forgive you." She pulled him into a hug. "Alright? I forgive you."

Arthur felt his cheeks heat up and tears come to his eyes. For once, he didn't try to hold them back. He fell into the hug completely and sobbed into Gwen's shoulder, relieved to finally let himself let go of everything.

"Thank you," he whispered.

"I know I'm not Merlin, I know that I'm not even close to what the two of you had, but if you ever need to talk to me, I'm here, okay?"

He nodded back wordlessly. The only noise in the whole room was Arthur crying and hiccuping for the first time in years.

"I miss him, Gwen. I miss him so much. It's like someone ripped part of my soul off and they're hiding it in a box somewhere." He held onto her tighter. "I don't know what I'll do if he never comes back. I don't know how I'll be able to cope with that."

"We'll make sure you don't have to."

"What?"

She rubbed his back soothingly.

"We'll find him, Arthur." She paused. "We won't ever stop looking."

"Promise?" he asked as Gwen carefully manouvered him onto his back and started tucking him in.

She smiled and gently pulled her hand away so that she could leave. Just as Arthur drifted off he heard her voice.

"Promise."

–

It never got easier to execute someone, no matter how many times one had seen it or even done it themselves. Arthur wasn't even sure that he wanted to have this particular man executed. But the law demanded it, so he really had no other choice.

His arm was getting sore. He didn't know why he was hesitating for so long, but it had been at least a minute and he hadn't brought his hand down to kill the man.

There was the sound of something shattering in the distance and Arthur almost cursed Merlin for it before remembering that Merlin was gone, maybe forever. He didn't want to think that way. He didn't want to think about how he was almost completely alone now.

"Arthur!"

His mind, as it was wont to do, decided to play a cruel joke on him. Merlin's voice was nigh unforgettable, but to actually hear it was terrible. Why on earth was he forced to keep hearing his voice?

"Arthur!" Just ignore it, just ignore it. He knew it wasn't real, but all the same, it hurt like a ton of bricks being dropped on his chest. "Help! I was trapped in your room!"

His right hand was still up in the air, stiff and unmoving, but his left clenched slowly until it felt like his fingernails were going to cut through his gloves and tear open his palm. He stared straight ahead and bit the inside of his cheek.

"Over here, Arthur! By your window!"

He was tempted to look, even if he knew he'd be disappointed. It was rare for Merlin to keep talking to him for this long if he didn't respond, so maybe, just maybe, he was actually there. All the same, he really shouldn't give into listening to the phantom noise.

"Please! I need your help!"

It was too much to bear to ignore it for a fourth time, even if Arthur knew that Merlin wasn't really there. Or he hoped he knew, because even as he told himself not to get his hopes up, he found himself turning to look at his window.

And there Merlin was, impossibly, against all logic, clinging to the side of the castle like an idiot. He looked almost remorseful about something, although Arthur didn't know what, and very close to bursting into tears.

"Merlin!" It was him, it had to be; Merlin was finally back! "Merlin, where on earth have you been?"

Arthur sprinted to the edge of the balcony, steadying himself to clamber over and start scooting along the wall to rescue his manservant. However, just as he was about to sling his leg over the railing, he saw Merlin's eyes glaze over and his his hands slip from their precarious hold on the imperfect stone of the wall. He didn't even seem to be aware of the fact that he was falling to certain death on the flagstones of the courtyard.

"Merlin!" 

He had to hear him. He had to.

"Merlin!"

Arthur was almost angry now. He could feel his throat close up and his forehead crease. But it felt much closer to grief, to a second loss so soon, so undoubtable, so unambiguous after the last time. He didn't know which he preferred: an open answer or a closed one.

"MERLIN!" he screamed again, knowing that it was likely to be the last time he could call out to him. Finally, Merlin's gaze cleared and he seemed to realize exactly what was happening to him. Fear filled his eyes, and it was painfully visible even from the distance that separated them.

Then, surprisingly, he landed on the pyre. Arthur could've sworn up and down that someone had been on that pyre, but now that Merlin was there, he couldn't remember who it was for the life of him.

"Arthur!"

A guard, far younger than Arthur, came into view out from under the balcony holding a torch, and Arthur suddenly realized that he'd dropped his hand when he'd tried to get Merlin off the wall. Regardless of circumstance, the guard would have seen that as correct signal. And regardless of what he did now, Merlin was going to die.

For real.

Right in front of Arthur's eyes.

Merlin kept screaming Arthur's name, and Arthur could do nothing in the split seconds it took for the pyre to catch fire but stare at him in horror.

And before he knew it, Merlin seemed to go up in flames like flash paper, leaving only a pile of ash where he'd stood not a second earlier.

Arthur had only seen that once before, at the execution of the sorceror. He couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. Even if he accepted it as real, what on earth could it mean?

–

Arthur's eyes snapped open and for a moment, he could still smell smoke. It disappeared quickly, leaving him to stare at his canopy.

He wanted to forget that awful nightmare as soon as he could, but he doubted he'd be able to. Watching Merlin burn to death after falling from three stories up wasn't very forgettable.

Not to mention that the whole thing had an unfamiliar quality of realness that his other nightmares featuring Merlin's death had lacked. He hadn't been trapped in a box of darkness, Merlin hadn't suddenly levitated, and there hadn't been sudden light. It felt like it had been more than what Gaius said dreams were: constructions of his mind to solve problems. They felt two-sided, like a conversation. And wasn't that really what life was – a series of conversations through actions and reactions?

So instead of trying to go back to sleep, which he knew he wouldn't be able to, he got up and looked out his window, just in time to see horses canter into the courtyard.

The knights were back.

Hastily, Arthur grabbed his trench coat and rushed out of his room, completely barefoot. He raced through the hallways, down the stairs, turned down passageways as they came to him until he was finally at the main door. He shoved it open with his shoulder and dashed down the steps to meet his brothers in arms.

Leon was the first to see him.

"Arthur! What are you doing up at this time of night?" The first knight dismounted gracefully and handed his horse off to a stable boy. Arthur rather wondered why the boy was up so late, but decided not to comment on it.

"I couldn't go back to sleep," he replied in a rush, eager to tell them about his nightmare.

"What happened, Arthur?" asked Gwaine, who looked as if he was willing to believe that in the three days that they'd been gone, Merlin had miraculously appeared in Camelot, solved world hunger, and created an unending supply of alcohol in the tavern.

"Plenty, but I'll stay with what just happened."

"Is Merlin back?" Gwaine interrupted again.

"Let me finish," Arthur grumbled, "and I might just tell you."

After a few seconds of silence from the knights, Arthur continued.

"He's not back yet. But I had a dream with him in it, and it felt a lot less like a dream and more like a memory. You know what I mean– real." He suddenly realized just how stupid it all sounded out loud and how ridiculous he must seem to have run outside in the middle of the night, not even dressed, to tell the knights about a dream. He felt his face heat up. "I mean, it felt like it was really happening, or at least like Merlin was really there. Leon, do you remember how Morgana would wake up from nightmares, all of which happened later, I think, and she took a couple seconds to get back to reality?"

His first knight nodded, but he looked more concerned than anything else.

"Well, it felt kind of like how she described it, when she would talk to me. It felt very, very real. Frighteningly so. It was clearer than she used to say they were, but it felt more like real life than a dream." He looked around at his knights. "Do you understand?"

The knights looked at each other, some of them completely inscrutable and some of them startlingly expressive. Lancelot looked hopeful and a bit nervous, as if he was sure he was about to get in trouble. Elyan seemed rather skeptical of the whole thing, but he was fairly unreadable, as always. Worry oozed from Leon and Arthur almost didn't want to look at him and see his pity. He must have thought that Arthur was out of his mind with grief. Percival was difficult to read– he just frowned and looked at the ground.

Gwaine, on the other hand, looked positively manic. He was struggling to hide a grin and bouncing on the balls of his feet despite the thirty pounds of armor he was wearing. That wasn't uncommon with him, but it did seem a bit threatening when he kept glancing at Arthur agitatedly.

"I think we do–" Leon started to say.

"You think Merlin got into your dream on purpose?" Gwaine asked excitedly. Lancelot closed his eyes behind him and took a few deep breaths.

"Well, maybe not on purpose," Arthur replied, a bit confused. "But I think he was definitely there, whether he wanted to be or not."

"Which means," said Gwaine, bouncing up and down, "that he's out there. Which means we can find him, which means we can bring him home."

Arthur grinned.

"You better believe it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop woop! Chapter is DONE, I am TIRED, fuck THIS, I'm going to BED.
> 
> But in all seriousness, thanks for sticking with me for so long. I've been stressed with school, it's 1 in the morning, and all your comments are so important to me that I literally have them saved to my phone. I will always look at your comments, even if I don't have time to respond, so look at this as a general response for all of you lovely people:
> 
> From the bottom of my heart, thank you so, so much. Your positive responses and your excitement mean the world to me. I love seeing what people like and I love hearing about what drove you crazy. I hope you have the best week, month, year, decade, whatever you want to shoot for.
> 
> School and some personal issues will probably get in the way of posting frequently, but hang in there, I'm working on it. I've got two simulataneous cliffhangers and I feel bad, so things should be getting done soon.
> 
> My beta is still the amazing @wolvaraash. You still know where to find her. I'm really, really tired.


	12. Twins and Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Can I get a fuckin uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh... good friends?

"You're Emrys," Morgana echoed. She skittered backwards across the floor with her hands. "Emrys, oh gods, you're Emrys." Her back hit the wall and she curled into a tight ball against it. "I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, this isn't real."

"Morgana, please," the traveler pleaded, his eyes closed to keep him from seeing her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"My destiny and my doom." Her voice was muffled, but it shook terribly. "That's what they told me. My destiny and my doom."

The traveler shuffled towards her slowly on his hands and knees.

"Your 'doom?' Morgana, I don't understand."

Suddenly, she lifted her head almost as fast as one cracked a whip. Her eyes looked simultaneously haunted and filled with newfound understanding. "That's why you poisoned me."

"Please, listen to me, you aren't making any sense. I wanted to stop the enchantment on Camelot, and you were the source. I never wanted to hurt you just for the sake of hurting you." He squeezed his eyes closer together, as if that would stop everything around him from happening. "I didn't want to poison you. But it was you or Camelot."

Morgana stood up, still bracing herself against the wall.

"You were my friend." she said, her voice shaking. It was difficult to tell if it shook with anger, sadness, or fear. "And you betrayed me." She clenched her fists and yelled. "You were my friend!"

Finally, the traveler opened his eyes.

"I still am! Morgana, I'm still your friend!"

"We've been 'friends' for the last week under false pretenses! Therefore it's not legally binding!" Her voice was shrill, but there was some humor in it, even if it wasn't supposed to be there.

"I never knew friendship was legally recognized. I'm certain we don't have the paperwork."

"Shut up, Merlin! Shut," her voice hardened, "UP!"

Morgana grabbed at the knife on the table and threw it at him with professional ease. The traveler almost considered just letting it hit him because everything was crashing down around him and, dull as it was, it probably wouldn't hurt anymore than anything his curse could conjure up, but his magic made the decision for him. The blade came to an abrupt stop midair about two inches from his chest and fell to the dirt floor. He nearly wished that it hadn't.

"Look, I didn't want to hurt you," he said, still on the ground. "I wanted to save Camelot. But I couldn't have both, as it turned out, so I had to choose one. I'm sorry about what I did, and it's probably my biggest regret." He watched as Morgana stepped closer to him, and couldn't tell if he was hoping she was planning on strangling him or hoping that she wasn't. "I'm not asking for forgiveness. I just want you to understand exactly why I did it. I just want to be your friend, Morgana. Especially after everything."

"You..." she started, but she didn't have anything else to say.

"I'm sorry, Morgana. Really, I'm sorry." He pushed himself into a sitting position against the bed frame. "I don't know what else to say."

"I can't talk to you right now." Her voice was almost calm, the perfect mask to hide her violent emotions under, a mask that he knew she'd worn for years. But there was a cruelty there that he hadn't heard in ages, one that he'd hoped never to hear directed towards him. "I might never be able to talk to you again."

With that, she turned on her heel and stormed out of their shack, the door slamming shut behind her. The traveler - no, he was Merlin - no, Emrys... He groaned, pulled the blanket off his bed, and wrapped it around himself.

What was he? He had lost every friend he'd ever had. He was magic incarnate, as everyone was so keen on reminding him, but what did that mean? If he died, then and there, who would care or know? He bit his hand, letting it feel like his teeth were sinking into it around the muscles of his thumb, trying to flush out the ruinous feelings that were coursing through him like poison. He hated this feeling. It wasn't quite sadness, it felt more like perpetual guilt. It was the voice in his head that told him, every time he skipped a chore or teased with someone a but too harshly, that he was a Bad Person. Sometimes, it was the voice that told him to do things to himself, awful things, things he didn't even want to repeat. He tried not to listen to it. He didn't really want to die, when he thought about it. He wasn't about to take his own life, but if he was given the option to be dropped into a void where he couldn't think or talk to people or really even exist... Well, it would be quite the offer. It would be one that he probably wouldn't be able to refuse.

After all, people really didn't care about 'Merlin', did they? As soon as they knew about his magic and the druidic name that felt more like a condemnation than an expression of reverence, they turned tail and fled. Or they died, in the cases of Will and Freya. As if it was their punishment for not caring that he had more power than any other sorceror on record. So it was probably for the best that Morgana had left him behind. If she hadn't, she might join Will wherever Will had gone. Maybe that wouldn't really be a bad thing, but she could still be kind when she tried, gentle when she cared, and empathetic when she wanted.

"She's a better person than me," he mumbled aloud, taking comfort in the way the words made his throat rumble and remind him that he was there. She was justified in her anger, which was really the reason why it was so easy to understand her motivations. Her methods needed some heavy revision, certainly, but he could see why she was doing what did. He could even agree with it. Magic needed to be returned to the world for there to be balance and Camelot had been a centerpiece of genocide for over twenty years under Uther's reign. Something had to be done. Not anything, granted, but something.

He felt numb, without any clue as to what he ought to do next. He could just leave, shoving everything important to him in the tear. Nothing was stopping him. No one would care. But he already felt untethered to everything around him except for the shack he was sitting in. If he left, where would he even go? What could he possibly do after cutting ties to his last anchor, setting himself adrift in the world that he felt perpetually out of step with?

If he was lucky, Morgana would decide that she never wanted to see him again and never come back to the shack. If he wasn't, then she'd come back with a sharpened stick or a snake. Maybe, if the odds were really against him, she'd come back with a sword that she just happened to trip over as she was storming back. As well as fifty bandits and a horse.

He curled up tighter in the blanket and tried to scooch under the bed frame.

At first, all he did was stare at the weathered wood and all the knots in it, but eventually his eyes closed.

They snapped open what felt like only a second later to the door slamming open against the wall and loud, frightening footsteps storming through the shack.

“Merlin!” bellowed Morgana. He swallowed and tried not to breathe. “Where are you!”

Her thundering steps pounded off towards the kitchen and then back, circling the shack twice until they stopped in front of the traveler’s face. He heard a soft, satisfied ‘oh’ and barely had enough time to register what was happening before he was yanked harshly out from under the bed by the blanket. He hit his head on the bed frame as he came out, closed his eyes, and groaned. He opened them to Morgana’s menacing glare only a few inches from his face.

“There you are,” she said, cool and dangerous like the snakes she was so fond of. She grabbed his collar, choking him as she pulled him up. “Hiding under the bed? What are you, eight?”

“Morgana,” he gasped, “please—”

“No. I don’t care.” She pulled a knife out of... somewhere (where did she put all the random, dangerous things she found, anyways?) and tilted it back and forth to catch the light. Smirking as his eyes widened, she held it to his Adam’s Apple. “Don’t ask me for anything. Shut up while I cut your throat open.”

This was it. This was the Morgana that he’d always known was there, the Morgana that he’d known could come out at any time. Dangerous, merciless, and angry. He swallowed.

“Alright.”

He tilted his head back, breathing shakily through his nose. Wasn’t this exactly what he’d been waiting for? A passive opportunity to stop existing? If nothing else, having a knife held to his throat certainly was that. He wondered what death would be like, and if the guilt that hounded him while he lived would follow him into death.

“What?” The blade pulled back slightly. “Just like that?”

“Yes. Just like that.”

He watched, already feeling slightly detached from his body, as her lips pressed together irritatedly and she pressed her knife back into his neck. It was refreshingly cold.

“Don’t play games with me, Merlin. I’m not fucking bluffing.”

Robotically, his voice monotone, he answered, “I don’t think you are. And I’m not playing games. If you’re going to kill me, go ahead.”

He wondered if he even could stop her, before discarding any idea to the contrary almost immediately. It wasn’t a question of could. He definitely could. But he didn’t want to, and that mattered far more.

However, he did wish that he wasn’t currently swaddled like a newborn as he was killed. While it lent some nice literary symmetry to bookend his life, it was a tad embarrassing.

Morgana’s eyes narrowed to be as sharp as the weapon in her hand and a cruel smile played on her face just long enough to burn it into his mind.

Suddenly, his entire torso burst with pain and he yelled in shock. Distantly, he heard a knife fall to the ground for the second time and he curled in on himself as his neck wasn’t being held up anymore. He wondered in passing how Morgana had managed to stab him so many places in so little time, but his mind clouded over almost instantly in agony. He clutched at his sides, trying to do anything to stop the pain or keep himself alive. The ground in front of him went blurry and his head felt like it was being crushed by an overenthusiastic giant. Blood roared in his head, drowning out everything around him.

Dully, a voice — Morgana, the half-functioning part of his brain whispered — repeated the same sounds over and over. But it wasn’t soothing or helpful. It sounded frightened and bewildered, and the traveler wished it would stop. It didn’t get any better as the voice came into focus.

“... oh shit, shit, shit, shit. God fuck, by the lords of country, shitting dammit. Crapshit, fuck...” The stream of stressed consciousness continued in much the same way, stuttering every once in a while as the traveler coughed and dry heaved.

“Stop it,” he gasped when he had almost enough air to say anything. “Please stop talking.”

She didn’t seem to hear him, though, and kept mumbling worriedly. “Are you okay? I can’t believe I fucking forgot about this. I mean, you’re clearly not. Fucking hell. What can I do? What do you need?”

He opened his mouth to answer but found himself gasping in pain instead as the stabbing feeling in his ribs seemed to twist. He reached out, trying to stabilize himself on something, and grabbed Morgana's shoulder. She made a sort of repulsed yelp and jerked away, sending him crashing to the floor and curling up tight into the fetal position.

"Fuckshit!" she cried, moving closer to him tentatively. "I'm sorry. Damn."

The dirt got into his nose as he twitched and breathed heavily through his nostrils. He sneezed and coughed, which did nothing to help the biting pain in his torso. He shuddered and wheezed, only seeming to be half there.

Slowly, much in the way people ease themselves into a cold body of water, Morgana's hand came to rest on the traveler's shoulder that wasn't on the ground. It was warm and comforting, bringing him back to the week they spent of helping each other through each day, counting getting out of bed as a victory.

"Hey, hey. Hey, look at me." He obeyed her voice, which had slowed into a soothing rhythm despite how it shook. "Hey there. Hey. You're gonna be okay, you hear me? You'll be alright."

"It feels like I'm dying," he rasped. When had his throat gotten so hoarse?

"I can barely imagine. But you aren't going to die because I won't let you. It's not allowed." She pulled his upper body onto her legs and hugged him. "It's illegal. Do you want to break the law? Don't."

"After all I pulled in Camelot, I'm sure it wouldn't matter if I broke just one more law." He smiled dryly, still clutching his sides.

"This isn't a Camelot law, this is a Morgana Law. Forget Camelot laws. They're stupid and don't care about the people." Morgana kissed the crown of his head and rocked him back and forth. "You aren't illegal. Under Morgana Law, you are as legal as you can get."

"Thanks."

"Aside from the attempted murder, of course. But I'm over looking that right now, given how you look on the verge of death." She hefted him up and lay him carefully on the bed. "Now, I'm going to go to Camelot—"

"—oh my god Morgana, no—"

"—and I'm going to fix this."

He tried to sit up while still being restrained by the blanket and failed, flopping over onto his side like a half-hearted snake. "Morgana, you can't fucking kill the king of Camelot! If you really have to do anything, bring someone back with you. But don't just kill the king of Camelot!"

She groaned dramatically and put the back of her hand to her forehead. "Alas! I must."

"Morgana, if you do that he will literally kill you."

She scoffed.

"I'm not joking. You don't have magic, you don't have a sword, all you've got is that little knife. I don't want you to die."

At that, she sobered a bit and sat down next to him.

"Okay." She helped him sit up from his awkward position lying on his stomach and leaned him against the wall. "But do you know any other way to fix this? I don't know about you, but I don't even think you should leave the bed until we lift the curse. Anything could happen to you. I can’t say that I’d like to leave you alone right now."

"I second that. All of it about staying in one place." He turned to look at her, and resolved not to tell her about the information his magic had gotten back the time he cast a spell to find the knife's function. "I think we just need to do more research. We need a library."

"Camelot has that."

"You can't go and expect to survive the trip. You'd be killed as soon as you stepped inside the gates."

Morgana smirked at that, but it wasn't threatening. "Not if you cast a glamour on me. Think of it; a glamour cast by the most powerful sorceror in history. No one would be able to see past it."

"Well," he hedged, "you couldn't see past the glamour I cast on myself until you worked out who I was. I don't see any reason that it wouldn't work for you."

"Oh, I still can't. I know it's you, but I can't actually find your face under the glamour."

Surprised, he jerked away from her and fell over again. Morgana sighed and tugged him back up. As a preemptive measure, she wrapped her arm around his shoulder to keep him from falling over again.

"That's... Hmm. It's a better outcome than I expected." He shrugged as well as he could. "So I suppose that it would work perfectly for you."

"Wonderful." Absently, Morgana rubbed her hand up and down on her friend's arm. "What should I do when I get into the city?"

Without hesitation, he answered, "Find Lancelot. Tell him a friend of his is in trouble. He'd never refuse something like that, and it's true anyways."

"Would some namedropping help? Would it work better if I said Merlin?"

"Maybe, but please don't. I don't feel— no. Hang on." He closed his eyes, trying to get a sentence to work. Morgana waited patiently. "My magic is more important than that. My magic is more important than being Merlin. So please don't say 'Merlin.' Just say 'a friend'."

She looked at him sadly, but smiled comfortingly at him. "Alright then, Friend."

Morgana's friend blushed and tried to hide his face. "We'll need something so we can keep in contact with each other when you're away."

"Magic mirrors?" she suggested, thinking of the bedtime stories she'd heard almost before her memory.

"Do we have two of them?" her friend asked in reply, thinking of the same tales.

She got up. "Maybe. Let me go check."

She came back after a few minutes, holding one grimy mirror.

“Well, I only found one. But it’s dirty as hell and—“ The eyes of her friend glowed and the mold disappeared from the glass. “Oh, it’s fixed. Great.”

“I can split it into two mirrors,” he offered.

“Please do.”

He squirmed out of his blanket until his arms were free and then took the mirror into his lap. Mumbling under his breath, he waved his hands back and forth over the glass. Without warning, he snapped his fingers loudly. There was a blinding flash and when it cleared, the mirror was split neatly into two identical twins.

He held one out to Morgana, who took it, although she looked slightly confused.

"Put it on your far side, and put your hand on it. I'm going to do the same on this side." They both did it and Morgana's friend continued with his instructions. "Good. Now you need to hold my hand."

"Wow, I didn't know you wanted to go there. You should have said something sooner."

"For goodness sake, Morgana, it's just the spell!" His face flushed.

Taking his hand in hers, Morgana smiled. "I know. Just teasing."

"Right, right. Good." He cleared his throat nervously. "To do this, we need to be in sync. So we need to breathe together and the physical link will make the whole thing easier. Alright? So we breathe in together," he took a deep breath, "and we breathe out together." He exhaled slowly. "You get it?"

"Yep."

"Perfect."

At first their breathing was a couple seconds off, but slowly their timing lined up and they breathed as one organism.

As they inhaled and exhaled rhythmically, soft lights pulsed from their chests. Morgana was sporting a lively green, and her friend's heart glowed a soothing blue. The lights intensified the longer they breathed together, until strands of radiance tied the two together. In a brilliant flash, the mirrors burst with light as well and then faded back to normalcy. The gleaming gradually dulled as well, leaving the two friends on the bed to stare sit there silently.

"Wow," Morgana breathed. "That was amazing."

"Yeah."

"Now we just have to hope that they work."

"Well, go outside and test it."

"How do I activate it?"

"Just start talking to it." He gave her a sort of proud grin. She frowned back at him.

"But how does it know when I'm talking to it specifically and when I'm chatting up a waitress? What if I make a joke that mentions mirrors and it calls you? What if—"

"It's magic, Morgana." He looked at her grumpily. "You, of all people, should know that it just works. Don't look for the answers because something terrible will happen to you."

She rolled her eyes. "Very funny."

They spent the next several hours until night fell to test the mirrors. They hadn't found a limit to the range yet, which they were both very pleased about, and it seemed impossible for them to malfunction.

Satisfied that there was nothing that needed to be improved upon, they made a simple dinner and retired to their beds, both dreading and look forward to Morgana's adventure that would start the following day.

—

Early the next morning, Morgana and her friend woke up. They were both pleasantly surprised to be nightmare free, possibly for the first time in half a year.

"How far are we from Camelot?" asked the friend as he handed Morgana her cloak.

"About a week's ride, so maybe a two week walk. I'll also have to avoid major roads, just as a precaution, so probably longer."

"Right."

They lapsed into a tense silence for the next few minutes.

"And what's your plan once you're inside the citadel?"

"I'm not going anywhere near my brother, that's for sure." At her friend's glare, she continued more seriously. "I'm going to find Lancelot, convince him to come back here with me, and then we'll look for a way to break your curse without killing Arthur."

"Alright. Now, you promise you won't kill Arthur?"

"Yes," she said, annoyed. "I won't kill your boyfriend."

"He's not my—"

"I know, teasing."

As the traveler muttered an incantation, Morgana looked less and less like an intimidating ex-courtier and more and more like a standard peasant woman, who wouldn't attract much more attention than maybe a 'hello there!' or a obligatory inquiry about her health.

"You look after yourself, alright?" he said after he'd finished. "I don't want you to do anything reckless. Stay out of trouble and don't draw attention and keep—"

"I get it. And I'll do all of those things, don't worry."

Twisting his hands in his shirt, he continued worriedly. "Stay safe."

"I will, I promise." She made her way over to the door and waved goodbye. "Make tea everyday, eat regularly, and take care. I'll see you in a month or so."

"Sounds good! See you then!" As she strolled down the hill he called one last thing. "Check in every night!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YO LOOK AT THIS MY DUDES
> 
> Okay so I'm posting this during my lunch period so just eat this and be nourished.
> 
> My beta is @wolvaraash and she's everywhere! All under the same name, so go check her out! She sold her soul for good art.


	13. Revelations and Obfuscations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a Lot.

Arthur stared at the piece of paper in his hand, not really seeing it. He just needed to get through the day of paperwork, and then he could head down to the Rising Sun for his meeting with Dame Tane.

He'd wondered, in the past few weeks, why and how she'd earned the title of Dame. From what Lancelot had told him when he'd asked, there were a few scattered places where women could be knighted, and their title was 'Dame.' And Dame Tane certainly had the build of a knight with her broad shoulders and muscles. The only thing that he couldn't quite match with her background was how Martha fit into it all. Was she a former servant, who'd picked up some skills with knives on the job, or was she a fellow knight? And why had the two of them left their home country in the first place?

He supposed he could ask her at dinner.

After a few more minutes of holding a piece of paper and staring off into the distance, he slammed the paperwork down on the table and stood up violently. The chair fell over.

'Oi,' brain Merlin said. 'I'm the one who has to clean your room.'

"No, you aren't." His voice almost cracked.

'I was,' came the reply, and it sounded much more heartbroken, much more real, than Arthur had ever heard it. Arthur bit back an apology. He couldn't apologize to a phantom.

Agitated, he stomped out of his room. He decided to go to the training ground to work off his irritation on a practice dummy, or maybe a new knight. Whichever one was available.

As he strode through the hallways, he was surprised that he didn’t see any servants. It wasn't entirely uncommon that they would avoid a particular area for a day or so for whatever reason, but it was rarely the main hallways around the King's room.

Suddenly, a hand reached out and pulled him into an alcove.

"Gwaine?! What the hell!" Arthur hissed angrily.

"The knights and I want to talk to you. You've been holed up in your room for so long, and no one's been allowed to go in. Or that's what Gwen told us, but we don't know if that was because you explicitly said that or if she's just being a mind-reader again." His knight grinned.

Arthur struggled to calm his face to a sort of regal distance, doing his best not to let his irritation at the interruption show through. The knights were nothing if not tenacious, and if he refused now, he'd probably end up being dragged off a few days later at the most inopportune time.

"Fine. Lead on."

Gwaine's smile dropped instantly and he nodded, walking back the way Arthur had come at a brisk pace. The silence that settled over them lasted only for about minute before Gwaine broke it, sounding like he was trying to keep anger out of his voice and not doing a very good job of it.

"Are you just going to give up on Merlin?"

"Is that what the rest of the knights want to talk about?" Arthur asked in reply, ready to head back to his room, damn the consequences, if it was.

"No. I just need to know." They stopped halfway down a hallway that was a few floors above the kitchen, and the smell of fresh food carried through the vents. Arthur sighed.

"We've already gone out on so many searches and patrols. What will anymore find? Whoever took him was good, and clearly doesn't want to be found, or for Merlin to be found." He clenched his fists, trying to keep his voice from shaking. "I haven't given up on him. But if we ever see him again, it won't be because we found him, it'll be because he found his way back."

"You've fucking given up on him." Gwaine's anger felt like an axe ready fall and chop Arthur's head off. He tried not to shrink back.

"No, I haven't! I just don't have any faith in our ability to find him."

"That's the same fucking thing."

Arthur released a breath through his nose and his shoulders sagged like he'd let out everything that was holding them up.

"Maybe it is."

Gwaine's expression was an odd one, especially on the knight who was second only to Merlin in his insolence. It almost looked like concern, or it would have if Arthur hadn't known better.

"Alright, princess," he said after a beat or several. "Let's keep going."

They continued down the hallway, lapsing back into silence. Finally, they reached a door which Arthur couldn’t honestly admit to remembering, aside from one fuzzy memory from a lazy day in his childhood, which sounded preposterous in and of itself. Lazy days were as elusive as butterflies. Not that he’d ever tried to catch a butterfly. He would never. Princes and kings just didn’t do that.

“Voila,” Gwaine said cheekily, opening the plain wood door grandly. As the doorway opened, Arthur saw his knights inside, arranged in a vaguely menacing semi-circle. Percival was, surprisingly, in the middle of it all.

“What is this?” he demanded a bit indignantly.

Percival moved a bit farther out of the circle, holding a piece of paper in his hands and worrying it. He ran his index finger down it as if looking for something. Clearing his throat, he read off of it.

“This is an intervention. You’ve been hiding away in your room for a,” he paused, stammered a bit, and kept going, “a concerning length of time, and we want to make sure that you’re alright. So we’re going to stay here for a bit and make sure you get a break, even if you don’t want to talk about it.” 

The knights behind Percy were standing patiently, with encouraging looks on their faces despite the fact that he couldn’t see them. Arthur turned to look at Gwaine, to do what else he didn’t know, and saw the same expression on his face. He looked softer than he ever did, happy and maybe a bit proud, not even trying to hide it. Arthur had known that Percival was nervous about speaking, but if the event of him actually saying more than a few sentences was enough to melt Gwaine into this happy doofus that Arthur was seeing now, the issue must have run deeper than he realized.

“We have dice and some snacks, as well as some cards, so we can play anything you’d like,” Percival continued. “We just figured that it would be good to make sure you have a bit of fun once in a while.”

“Thank you—“ Arthur was quickly cut off by an elbow from Gwaine, but it was too late. Percival looked up, a panicked look in his eyes. He got an encouraging nod from Gwaine and fumbled to find his place again.

“Please stay here for at least a little while. Please stay long enough to relax, even if you have to back to work afterwards.”

He glanced up again, seemingly done with his spiel.

“Well, Arthur, what do you say?” Gwaine said, clapping Arthur on the back.

“I don’t see why not.”

“Fantastic. What’ll it be, dice or cards?”

Arthur glanced around at the faces of his knights, suddenly struck by the feeling that they were missing something. Someone, really. Namely, Merlin, but of course Merlin was why this whole thing was happening in the first place.

“Uh, cards.”

The knights broke their ranks to sit together on some mismatched pillows that looked like they’d been stolen from about half a dozen different courtiers, Elyan beckoning to Arthur to join them. He did and accepted the hand Lancelot gave him without a word of protest or anything else. Leon played a two of clubs, and the game was on.

The turn of play whirled around the circle at record speed, each man slapping a different card on the ground excitedly when it came to him. Wins and losses were exchanged as easily as insults and slices of bread. The conversation was hardly meaningful, mostly idle gossip about the younger knights and who they’d taken up with recently and betting on who would win the hand of who, while Sir Leon made an entertaining variety of disgusted faces when the others went into more detail about some of the more ridiculous things that had transpired during some duels that were clearly nothing beyond competitive flirting. Elyan was surprisingly good at cards, mostly because he was an incorrigible cheat. Lancelot had lost the first game humiliatingly and never recovered, but he did manage to keep the man to his left, Gwaine, from gaining any ground either. Leon seemed to find himself in the position of having to keep the two of them from doing any harm outside of the game, which Percival snickered at incessantly. Arthur found himself, some twenty rounds in, smiling at the lot of them, frozen as he watched the five of them shed their titles behind a closed door and laugh like kids decades younger. It came to his turn and he was still looking at them like they were double rainbows, only peripherally aware the he was supposed to put a card down.

“Sire,” Elyan prompted, smirking.

“Right, sorry.” He put down a three of diamonds face down, grimaced, and flipped it back up.

“What’s on your mind?” Leon asked innocuously.

“Nothing much.”

“Good.”

‘Yeah, prat,’ brain Merlin snarked, reemerging. ‘We wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.’

Arthur found himself caught between bursting into laughter and letting his face fall into grief, and ended up crying and giggling all at once. He curled over his crossed legs, covering his face and trying to catch a breath between everything. He was entirely unsuccessful and only succeeded in getting his pants soaked with his tears and wheezing loudly.

“Sire?!” Lancelot scrambled across the circle, shaking Arthur’s shoulders urgently. “Sire, are you alright!”

“He looks like he’s having some sort of fit,” Gwaine commented, his voice more curious than concerned.

“He sounds like a strangled owl,” Percival whispered to Gwaine, barely audible above the noises that he had managed to so accurately describe.

“Damn right, Percy.”

Arthur lifted his head, salt water soaking his face while he grinned and laughed. Lancelot looked a bit frightened, as if he would make to scramble as far away as possible the moment there was a threat. Elyan pulled him backwards before he could make the choice.

Leon, ever the one to get straight to the point, kneeled in front of Arthur with an inscrutable expression on his face.

“Arthur, are you okay?”

Arthur closed his mouth, still smiling, and wiped the tears away from his face.

“I— gods, no. No, not at all.” He laughed again, a bit bitterly. “But I think I might be getting there.”

“What happened, Arthur? Why did this happen to you? Should we fetch Gaius?” Leon did some very uncomfortable-looking things with his neck to try and meet Arthur’s eyes, but he managed it.

“You— I... No. Don’t get Gaius.” His smile dropped completely and his eyes dried up, and somehow the emptiness that was left instead was worse than the warring emotions, both moving together and fighting in one big expression of hypocrisy. “I-it’s not medical. It’s just grief.”

The knights glanced around at each other nervously. They clearly hadn't expected him to actually open up, and they didn't know what to do now that he had.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Leon asked gently.

"No," he grumbled. He stood up, handed his cards to Percy (they were very good cards and he wanted to apologize), and left the room. As he shut the door, he heard Gwaine say, "that went well."

Gwaine had always had low standards.

—

He slipped into his room quietly, glad that the servants still hadn't returned to the hallways outside. Now that he had no one to talk to, no one who really knew how to, he would rather just hide in his room like he had when his first dog had died. He couldn't let Uther see him cry because princes didn't cry, and he didn't have his dog to comfort him. Only a heartless, empty room that was too big for him.

And now Merlin was missing and almost certainly dead. Arthur hadn't talked to Gaius in ages, trying to spare himself the pain of it, but he knew it was an inevitable encounter. And now that he had given up both his paperwork and his recreation, he decided he could no longer put it off.

Arthur looked around his room all the same, looking for something that he absolutely-had-to-do-right-that-instant to give himself some excuse not to go just then.

But he had his shoes on and there weren't any holes in them, and the bed was made, and the room was clean. Except for one thing.

He righted the chair and briefly checked for any damage, but there wasn't any. Grumbling, he made his way out of the hallway and checked for any knights waiting to leap out of alcoves and drag him off to play cards. He didn't see anyone, and he almost felt sad, even though he'd asked them to leave him alone. Well, not in so many words, but they probably understood.

Eventually, Arthur arrived at the physician's door. It opened just before he could knock, and a small, chest-high person ran into him.

"See you later Gaius!" Seta was calling cheerfully just as he plowed into the king. "Oh! Sire, I didn't know... I mean, hey!"

Arthur smiled.

"Hey there, Seta. And remember, you can call me Arthur. It's fine." Carefully, Arthur stepped around Seta and tussled his hair. "I need to talk to Gaius now, alright? I'll see you tomorrow."

"Yes, sir!" he chirped happily. He froze for a second and then looked a little embarrassed as he said, "I mean, okay, Arthur!" Seta hurried out and down the stairs, disappearing from sight quickly.

"You need to talk to me, sire?" Gaius prompted from his table.

Arthur nodded, sobering instantly. "We haven't spoken much since Merlin, ah..." he looked for the best way to put it, "disappeared. And I was, um, I was hoping that there was something to remember him by."

Gaius, imperturbable as always, looked Arthur over for a second before saying "of course, follow me" and shuffling over to the short flight of stairs that led to Merlin's room. He groaned a bit as he climbed them and opened the door after struggling with it for a few seconds. It seemed somewhat stuck, probably because no one had used it in at least a month.

The tiny bedroom was hardly different than it had been when Arthur and the knights had investigated it over half a year ago. The drawers that they'd opened had all been closed and the bed had been made, but other than that it was completely untouched. In fact, it was so untouched that there was a healthy layer of dust on everything and floating through the air. Arthur sneezed, and it felt like an intrusion.

Gaius went straight to the wardrobe and pulled out a red strip of cloth. THE red strip of cloth.

"He'd want you to have this," Gaius said, and it almost felt like scolding the way he said it. "You were very important to him."

Arthur took it gingerly, carefully feeling where the fabric had worn thin and running his hand along the frayed edge. It felt like Merlin in an almost undescribable way; like Merlin’s essence had seeped into it after wearing it for so long. It felt like it held his soul or as if it was one piece of a larger whole and Arthur was meant to put Merlin back together.

“Do you think he’ll come back?” Arthur whispered. He couldn’t tell if he’d meant for it to be heard.

"I keep telling myself he will, but it seems less and likely each day," said Gaius matter-of-factly, managing to sound detached even from discussing the likely death of his ward.

"When do we stop looking? When do we just say that he's never coming back?" He rubbed Merlin's scarf anxiously. "When do we give up?"

Gaius sighed, finally letting emotion bleed into his voice.

"If he'd only been gone a month, I would say that we should never give up on him because he'd never give up on us. But after almost seven months of his absence, I find myself no longer able to say such things. If he was able, he would be back by now. He deserves to be laid to rest." The old man closed the wardrobe gently. "It's not fair to him to deny him that. He's due his final rites."

"I—"

"But not today." Gaius started to shoo him down the stairs and out the door. "Tomorrow, maybe. Not today."

"Alright. I'll come 'round tomorrow," Arthur conceded as he stumbled out the door. Gaius closed the door with unusual speed and Arthur heard the muffled sounds of someone trying not to cry before he decided to leave Gaius to his tears and privacy.

He glanced out the window and realized it was almost time to go to his meeting. He went back to his room, grabbed the blue cloak that Merlin had given him as a disguise and slipped out through the service access stairwell to the courtyard. He went quickly, hiding his face as well as he could in the still well-lit city. The sun was going down, but it sure was taking its own sweet time.

Arthur lurked around one of the less-traveled byways to kill some time until the sun finally disappeared. He slunk into the tavern, identical to any other vaguely criminal person who wanted some privacy, and claimed a booth in the corner without a word to any of the waitstaff, not even when a young woman came by and gave him a tankard of some manner of cheap alcohol. He only slid her a coin and wrapped his hand around the handle.

It was only a couple of minutes later that the easily identifiable bulk of Dame Tane filled the doorway. She, too, was obscuring her face, and she’d left behind the massive two-handed sword she usually carried in favor of an expensive-looking war hammer that had been forged so it had a spike on one side of the head that looked like a horn. It was about mace-length and looked meticulously taken care of. Everyone in the tavern cleared out of her way, obviously worried that they'd be the next to have their head bashed in by such a weapon. She said nothing to them and made a beeline to Arthur's booth.

"Hey there," she said with the rough inflection of the lower town peasants. Arthur didn't even try to mimic it. He'd never had enough practice to make it sound authentic. The best he could do was drop parts of his words.

"'ey."

"Business or pleasure first?" She lifted her hand and summoned the waitress. "Cheapest drink you have."

"Of course sir," the young woman said pleasantly and disappeared to get it.

"Pleasure," Arthur said after a second of deliberation. "Let's wait for this place to fill up a bit."

"Good call."

They lapsed into silence. Arthur sipped his drink and worried the scarf in his pocket. Dame Tane hadn't given him any more information about what they would be discussing after he'd arranged the meeting, so anything could happen. He almost wished that he'd brought along a companion, as offered. He wondered why Dame Tane thought he distrusted her so much to allow that.

Dame Tane's drink arrived, and she chugged half of it and slammed it back down on the table. Looking around, Arthur saw that this behavior was widely practiced.

"You should chug it too," Dame Tane said quietly. "You stand out if you're sipping it this early in the evening."

"I don't drink much. I don't want to get drunk."

"Don't worry, if you got what I got it's basically fermented water."

Arthur stared at the liquid distastefully. He wasn't really thrilled by the idea of drinking half of it in one go. He already didn't like the taste.

Ignoring his better sense, he picked up the ceramic mug and gulped down as much as he dared.

He barely resisted the urge to spit it out.

"See," Dame Tane said, grinning. "That wasn't so bad."

"No," Arthur replied, grimacing, "that was disgusting."

"Now you just need to get into a bar fight."

"Absolutely not."

"I'm joking!" She hummed, amused at something, and said, "Well, at least at present."

Arthur covered his face in his hands.

"I can't believe that you're in charge of the security council. Who on earth thought it would be a good idea to elect you to that?"

She shook her head at him disapprovingly. "Two things, sir. First, don't say that here, not so explicitly. And second, you left us to our own devices. I just happened to take charge. Also, it was me or a stuffy old man who, if I had to guess, had never done anything about anyone else's issues in his life. And none of us wanted a politically corrupt arse running it."

"Good to know. On both counts."

"Yep."

They sat there for a few more minutes, nursing their drinks and waiting for the tavern to fill up. When it finally got crowded enough that people were pushing each other around drunkenly, Dame Tane leaned over the table conspiratorially.

"Business now?"

"Yes. Business."

"Alright then." She pulled out a sheaf of papers and put them in a stack on the table with finality. "First order of business. We have reports of a mercenary army assembling just beyond the Valley of Fallen Kings."

"Morgana?"

Dame Tane shook her head.

"No, that's unlikely. She still hasn't been seen anywhere that we have agents. She has, in the past, made a point of shows of power. She isn't doing that now. There have been no reports of her near this army, so we doubt that she's the one in charge of it." She carefully adjusted her cuffs. "Do you have anything in mind to defend against their attack?"

"How many people are in it?"

"A conservative estimate would be seven and a half thousand."

"Shit," Arthur muttered. He tapped his fingertips together absently for a minute. Dame Tane pulled out a quill pen and an obviously reused piece of paper to write on. "Alright. We need to fortify the walls, but don't tell the people yet. We can’t have them panicking over this. I want weekly updates on their activity. Post more security at the entrances to the city. Make sure we're not getting spies in. I'd prefer to fight them in the city, where we have an advantage in fortifications. We should try to step up training on the knights and guards; they need to be as capable as we can get them." He paused briefly, as if reviewing it all. "Can you think of anything else?"

"No, not really, beside weekly meetings between you and me rather than written reports. It's too easy to intercept those." That sounded somewhat suspicious, or at the very least like a flaw that needed urgent correction, but Arthur nodded all the same.

"We'll schedule meetings later."

"Sounds good. On to the second order of business?"

"By all means."

"Great. Okay." Dame Tane shuffled her papers around and looked over a new one. "We haven't located the sorceror, still, but we do have a sketch of him now. My agents went to every town that we got a report of him from and after comparing sketches from each town, we have made what we suppose would be the most accurate."

She dug another paper out of the pile and handed it to Arthur. It was a well-made drawing in charcoal. The most striking thing about the man depicted was the scar that started at the base of his chin, curved to the right side of his face, and then cut diagonally through his lip. Arthur remembered from a report from several months ago that described it, but it looked angrier and more prominent than he could've ever envisioned from the matter-of-fact description in a short report. The man's cheekbones were prominent and his hair curled around his ears and down his neck, like he hadn't had the chance to cut it in a while. There were a few other scars that decorate the sides of his face, as if he'd been hit by shards of glass or paper-thin arrows.

The face as a whole was rather expressionless, but the eyes looked hunted and tired. With all the scars and the man's unnerving eyes, Arthur could only guess that this was a man who'd been on the run for far too long to feel safe anywhere.

He handed the sketch back to Dame Tane.

"Good work." Arthur didn't really know what else to do with it now; it wasn't exactly as straight forward as ordering more patrols or extra reports.

"We've shown all of our agents this image. If he shows up, we'll know about it."

Arthur nodded.

"But there are other things you need to know, too." She fiddled with the papers at her side. “For one, this man is unquestionably powerful. As near as we can tell, he’s on par with your sis— Morgana.” Arthur opened his mouth to interject, Dame Tane just plowed on despite him. “Not only that, but he’s had a surprisingly positive influence on the crime wherever he goes, particularly in rural areas. We’ve had less than half the reports of bandit attacks than we recorded before he became a common presence. Mob violence in small towns and villages has plummeted, although we suspect that this is because he’s caused the public to have a more positive view of magic after fixing all their problems with it. And given that most mob violence is sparked by allegations of magic, it seems a reasonable conclusion.”

“I don’t—“ Arthur said irritably, trying to get a sentence in. Dame Tane only made her voice more forceful.

“There are already rumors surrounding him which have made it back to Camelot, and however quiet they are when they arrive, they are here. And we have at least report of an attempt to start a religion with him at the core.” Finally letting go of the papers, she cleared her throat. “My point is this: this man holds power. Both magical power, which we both know could easily wipe us off the map, and political power. Granted, his political power comes from unconventional sources, but it’s there. And you need to be careful about handling him.”

“I suppose now would be a good time to set the repeal of the magical ban into motion.” He was almost joking when he said it. It felt so grand and absurd to say it. But at the same time, he wasn’t too thick to realize that attacks from magical sources were mostly in response to the violent and excessive actions Camelot took against magic. Repealing the ban would, at least in the long run, make Camelot safer. Which was not to say that he trusted magic in the least; he couldn’t forget how Morgana had been corrupted and transformed from a compassionate and strong-willed woman into an angry sorceror with nothing on her mind but claiming the crown of Camelot. But a careful withdrawal of the death penalty in this case would work in his favor.

Dame Tane stared at him strangely for a bit.

“Yes, sir, I imagine that now would be an excellent time.”

She put away her stack of papers which seemed, if possible, even more disorganized than when she’d first pulled them out, and rolled up her notes to stick them in her jacket. She held up a hand to the waitress, who nodded back and made a ‘five minutes’ motion with her hands.

"Now, lastly, there's a man on his way to Camelot." There was weight on her words that made it sound like she was announcing a recent influx in deaths.

"So? People come into Camelot all the time. What's special about this one?"

"Well, sir, he's the duke of the duchy which collapsed a few months ago."

Arthur dropped his head onto the table painfully.

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah."

"Do you know what he wants?"

"No."

"Are you sure he's legitimate?"

"Pretty sure. He has his seal with him."

"And that's it?"

"Well, begging your pardon sir, but you and him don't exactly talk much. How am I supposed to know what he looks like when his duchy collapsed a month after I rose to office?"

"Right, right."

"That said, it seems odd to me. We had a report of the duke being killed in a blast of magic. I suppose it could be erroneous, but most of his vassals were pretty sure of it."

"They could still be wrong."

"Yes, but they might not be."

"I'll be careful with him."

"Make sure of it."

The waitress came over, and Dame Tane payed for their drinks. She stood up and edged out of the booth awkwardly, trying to keep her war hammer from bumping into anything. Arthur followed her with more grace.

As they walked to the door, Dame Tane stopped abruptly. Arthur followed what she was looking at and saw the agent who'd interrupted his meeting all those months ago. She was clearly drunk and laughing at some joke she'd been told. The man next to her was very close and kept touching her shoulder. She wasn't paying attention to him, and seemed mostly out of it.

"Hey!" barked Dame Tane, storming up to the table. "What are you doing with her?"

"Sorry, didn't know she already had a man," the man said, slimily. "I just couldn't help myself."

Before anyone knew what was happening, her fist flew through the air and connected with the man's nose.

"Oh, sorry," she snarled. "I just couldn't help myself."

Blood started gushing from the man's nose and he was making some rather horrified noises as he tried to stop it. "My nose!" he kept saying. "My nose!"

"First, she doesn't have a man, she's got a lady, and you should've left her alone whether or not she did. Second, she is my WIFE, and if you so much as look at her the wrong way again, I will do a hell of a lot more than break your nose." Dame Tane picked up her wife and held her bridal style as she stalked out of the tavern. Arthur stood stock-still for a second, dumbfounded. Then he hurried out after the two ladies.

"You're so dramatic," slurred the smaller woman. "Are you going to put me down?"

"No, Martha, I'm not."

"Okay."

Within a second, Arthur could hear soft snoring coming from Dame Tane's arms. Arthur caught up to her and then slowed down to match her pace.

"Is everything okay?" he asked. It felt odd to ask her something like that. They hardly knew each other. But the Merlin in his mind was telling him that he ought to, and Arthur was fairly sure that it was better to engage in pleasantries than walk along awkwardly.

"Yeah, mostly. She's just a lightweight, is all."

Arthur nodded in understanding and he and Dame Tane kept walking in step down the street. The silence was uncomfortable, like an old woman who pinched one's cheeks condescendingly. He cleared his throat nervously.

"I didn't realize you two were married."

Dame Tane glanced at him in surprise.

"Really? I'm surprised that Gwaine didn't tell you."

"Why would Gwaine tell me or even know? I didn't think he even knew you."

She laughed, and it rang out clearly in the evening air.

"He's the one who married us!" She smiled at the look of shock on Arthur's face. "We've known him for ages, and we bumped into him again a couple years ago while he was wandering the countryside, tavern-hopping, all that jazz. We told him that we were planning on getting married, but didn't know where to do it, and he said that he was licensed to marry people. I have no idea how he managed that, but he did."

"I don't think I can picture Gwaine marrying anyone. It's just feels so bizarre."

"Well, it certainly wasn't a conventional wedding, but it was definitely one of the best days of my life."

Arthur almost rolled his eyes.

"Of course it was, you were the one getting married."

"Well, there is that."

They made more idle chat before finally reaching a fork where they had to go their separate ways. Martha still hadn't woken up and now she was drooling a bit, and her wife was looking at her with a mixture of casual disgust and absolute, unbreakable adoration.

"Ah, well, Dame Tane, I'd love to have dinner with you again, hopefully with less mentions of impending political doom." It was an awkward way to conclude an evening, but he couldn't think of anything else to say.

"Likewise. And please call me Elysande. I get called Dame Tane quite enough by my minions." She grinned at him mischievously, and Arthur was briefly struck with the realization that he was looking at what Seta might grow up to be; genius and still valuing a good time despite responsibilities.

"Elysande it is then."

"Good night, sir." She still called him 'sir' as if he was a general. And he was, of sorts, but it was odd nonetheless.

"One more thing, please."

"Yes?"

"How long until the Duke of Dore arrives?"

"It's unclear. But just to stay on the safe side, I'd say three days."

"Fuck." He cleared his throat, trying to erase the fact that he'd just said that. "I guess I'd better get on arranging a welcome then."

"Yes, I think you ought to." She was obviously anxious to head on back to her own quarters.

"Sorry for keeping you. Have a good night."

—

It ended up being five days later that the Duke of Dore arrived, and when he came through the gates hunched over the neck of a horse, barely conscious, Arthur’d had to put off his plans of an impressive banquet in the duke’s honor in favor of putting him the care of Gaius for the next two days. The whole thing, while a bit irritating, lent Arthur precious extra time to set a legislative plan in motion and to begin the additional training of his guards.

When the duke was finally fit to meet with anyone, Arthur — as well as Dame Tane, Leon, Lancelot, and a scribe — visited him in the room that he’d been set up in. Gaius had seen easily that it would be better not to be present for whatever the four knights had in mind, and to simply deal with the aftermath of it.

“Duke,” Arthur had said curtly as a greeting. He couldn’t recall ever meeting the man before him, likely because he never had, but then again, the man was older than him by at least a good two decades and might’ve been a friend of Uther’s.

“Your majesty,” the duke croaked back. “Thank you for all of this. I am forever in your debt.”

Arthur nodded guardedly.

“I suppose you have many questions.” It was then that the man exploded in a fit of coughs, which sounded wet and disgusting. By Arthur’s reckoning, he was far too thin and far too old to endure it. “I can answer them.”

Arthur gestured to his scribe to start taking notes.

“Yes, I have several. The most immediately important is this: what happened? How did Dore fall, and why are your people convinced of your death?”

“We were attacked, sire. By a horde of barbarians and mercenaries. They were led by a man, a sorceror. He attacked me, in particular, and I was knocked unconscious. As you might or might not know, my castle is on a hill. I fell out the window and landed badly. There was blood on my chest, my blood, and I couldn’t move for several minutes when I woke up. Your physician told me that it’s common to have the wind knocked out of you after falling from very high up.” He coughed again, but it was shorter. He rubbed his chest. “Someone must have seen me lying there and told everyone else, which is where the rumor of my death must have originated. When I was aware again, there was no one in sight. They all must have fled. But my castle was left to crumble in smoking ruins. And the farms in the area around it are burned and the ground is salted. Nothing will grow there for years, that much is certain.”

“Well, I’m sorry for your loss.”

“The gesture is much appreciated.”

“Now,” Arthur said, walking slowly over to the bed, “please describe the sorceror who led this ‘horde’ as you say.”

He didn’t know if he hoped that it was the very sorceror that he’d been trying to find for the last six months just for the sake of knowing where the blasted man was, or he hoped that it was someone else entirely for who-knows-what reason.

“Well, he was short, shorter than you, sire. And he had a receding hairline, which was brown and fading fast.” The duke pressed a hand to his forehead.

“Do you need someone to fetch Gaius?” asked Arthur shortly.

“No...” he trailed off quietly. “No, it’s fine. Just a headache.”

“In that case, pray continue.”

“In all honesty, I didn’t get a good look at his face. He caught me by surprise and everything happened so fast.” He paused, and at first Arthur thought he was thinking but the longer it went on the more he was convinced that the duke was simply staring vacantly at the foot of his bed.

“Duke? Are you sure you don’t want Gaius to come in?” Concern had finally managed to bleed into Arthur’s voice.

“Yes, sire, perhaps that would be...” The duke’s sentence faded off again and he shook himself. “A good idea.”

“I have one last question for you, and then we’ll leave you, understand?”

“Yes, sire.”

“I don’t believe I caught your first name. For the sake of confirming everything in the records, can you refresh my memory?”

“Armaud, your majesty.” He continued to stare intensely at the end of his mattress, and Arthur nodded to his company that it was time they left.

“Thank you, Armaud. When you are fit to leave your bed, you will find a feast waiting for you.” The five people surrounding the vacant duke took bows of various depths and filed out the door. Immediately, Arthur dismissed the scribe to put the transcript of the interview in the vault of records and beckoned his knights to briefly confer.

“Well, that was odd,” Lancelot said quietly.

“Yes,” muttered Leon, as if he was still mulling it over. “Decidedly so.”

“Perhaps an effect of the sorceror’s attack?” Dame Tane suggested. “Or he hit his head harder than we thought he had.”

Arthur said nothing and waited for the other three to propose another cause.

“We need to check the lineage books, make sure that the Duke of Dore’s first name really is Armaud,” Lancelot said. Leon smiled a bit.

“That’s ironic, coming from you.”

“Not important right now,” interrupted Arthur. “That’s not the point of this.”

“True, sire,” Leon acknowledged, “but what is the point of this? Common precautions are, well, common. In such an odd circumstance as this, of course we’ll double check the Duke’s credentials. But his behavior hardly warrants such suspicion. He probably just has a head injury, sire. What’s this all about?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Arthur admitted. “But with everything that’s happening, I want to make sure that everything is as it appears to be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! If you have any questions about it or anything else, comment and I’ll gladly answer it. Even my beta wondered on this, and I could actually talk to her, so yes, the waitress is talking to Dame Tane when she says “sir.” Dame Tane looks fairly masculine, especially with some of her face covered.
> 
> No idea when I’ll next post. I’m going to bed straight after this so let’s jsut say that I am so very, very tired and I have so much work that it will not be consistent. But I’m going to finish this! I promise! So keep your eyes peeled!
> 
> My beta is @wolvaraash and she’s on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, DeviantArt, Instagram, and something else that I don’t remember. But if you’re on social media, chances are that she’s there too! Check out her art and writing!


	14. Two Sets of Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cool Morgana entree with a side of Merlin being in pain, and a diet coke, please

"Hey," Morgana's voice came floating through the shack with a sort of panicked urgency. The traveler jumped up and hurried over to the mirror on the table. "Hey, you there? I need you to pick up as soon as possible."

He tapped the glass with more force than necessary.

"Yes, it's me, I'm here."

"Oh good, I thought you were sleeping." Her face was disembodied and surrounded by fog.

"No, just making illusions. Why'd you call? Are you in Camelot yet?"

"We," Morgana's face turned away for a second as if she was looking over her shoulder, and then turned back, "have a huge problem."

—

Camelot was as bright as ever, with the castle's spires soaring off into the sky and the guards marching along in their vibrant uniforms with pride. Morgana hadn't been stopped at the gate, unlike most of the other people in line to enter the city, which she could only take as a sign that Merlin's— no, her friend's— glamour was working perfectly.

She wondered if Gwen still lived in the lower town. Not that she could visit, but knowing would be nice.

Morgana adjusted her bag on her shoulder and took stock of her surroundings. There were about ten different ways for her to get into the castle, but unless she wanted to be noticed instantly by either servants or courtiers, there were really only four that she could take. And for convenience sake, there were three. That left her with the decision of which one was closest to the knights' quarters, which Lancelot presumably resided in.

The lesser used squire's stairwell was her best bet. She could only hope that he was around there at this time. It wasn't early in the day, nor late, but instead the sun was sitting comfortably in the dead center of the sky. Morgana had never lived in Camelot the same time that Lancelot had, so she had no way to know his schedule. She grimaced at her ill-preparedness and set off.

She wound through the streets that she'd wandered since she was a child and ducked around people she could remember giving food during the magical famine. More than anything else, Morgana found herself missing the years when she and Arthur explored the castle together, pretending to be knights and adventurers on grand quests of valor and peril. One particularly vivid memory replayed itself in her head and she squeezed her fist painfully tight, trying to shake it off. It was bitter and embarrassing to be reminiscing about the years she'd spent in ignorance of her power and trapped in a gilded prison.

The door was easy to find, and she busied herself with picking the lock to avoid thinking about anything else. Sadly, the lock was too simple to keep her occupied for long, and she was in faster than it took her to clear her mind.

Stairs twisted upwards, and she hustled up them, hiking up her skirts. She thought wistfully of bullying her way into sword practice and wearing Arthur's old pants.

Irritably, she arrived on the floor with the knights' rooms, slamming her feet on stone when she came to a stop. There was no clear indication of which door belonged to to whom. She didn't want to ask for a clarification from any of the residents, but perhaps it was the only reasonable option. Not that she'd ever made a name for herself by being reasonable.

Deciding to for once screw her pride to the sticking place, for her friend's sake, she knocked on one of the doors.

"Um, yeah?" said a bleary-looking, hastily-dressed young man after opening the door.

"Where is Sir Lancelot?" She lifted her chin and stared him down.

"I think he's, uh, down at the training grounds. I 'spect so, uh, I mean, um, he's usually there right now, so I, uh, yeah..." He trailed off and Morgana narrowed her eyes disdainfully.

"Alright then." She turned back to the stairwell without looking at the young man again and made her way to the training grounds swiftly.

Sure enough, Lancelot was standing by a tent monitoring what looked like squires going through basic movements. She slowly meandered over to him, doing her best not to look suspicious. Given the reaction at the gate earlier, she had nothing to worry about.

Finally, she sidled up next to him and watched the squires with him, not saying anything for a few minutes.

"That one's not very good, is he," she said, pointing to one squire who was struggling to keep up with his peers and seemed perpetually off balance.

Lancelot jumped away from her and when he turned back to look at her, his eyes were wide. Morgana resisted the urge to laugh. Barely.

"Who are you!?" He put his hand on the hilt of his sword threateningly.

"The name's Ana," she replied. "And I need to ask a favor of you."

His hand fell back to his side.

"A favor?"

"Yes."

"Can you tell me anything else?"

She smiled; now that he was asking for more information, she had him on her hook.

"Certainly. A mutual friend of ours needs help, help that you can give him."

"Who? Why can't you help him?"

Morgana traced the designs on the pommel of a training sword to her right, thinking of exactly how to answer the knight's questions.

"I can't tell you who, sir knight, but I can assure you that the two of you are well acquainted. As to why I can't help him, I've already tried. He's beyond what I have the power to do, and he asked me to come here to ask the court physician for more information." She met Lancelot's eyes and held his gaze. "But I doubt that the physician will answer me. You can do it without drawing much attention, and if all goes according to plan, you will have no difficulty leaving the citadel."

Lancelot held up a hand, telling her that he'd come back to the conversation, and called out to the squires that they'd done everything for that day and could go home now. When he turned back to her, it seemed that he had processed everything.

"Leave the citadel?"

"Yes. In addition to asking for the physicians knowledge, I was asked to bring you back with me." At seeing his uneasy expression, Morgana added, "He was most certain that you'd come. He told me that you were perhaps the noblest of all the knights in Camelot. Please don't let him down."

Lancelot's eyes shone with something that looked like pride before he looked down at his feet, and it was clear to Morgana that he was won over. She said nothing and waited for him to reengage in the conversation.

"Is..." Lancelot began to say. He seemed hesitant to finish. "Is it Merlin?"

Internally, Morgana cursed impressively. Outwardly, she blinked as if confused. "Who?"

"Ah. Nevermind then." He sounded so disappointed that Morgana almost wished she could tell him the truth, but she owed her friend so much more than she owed this pretty-boy knight. Not to mention that he had almost certainly tried to kill her at least once, given that he was in Arthur's employ. "I'll do it, but I need to know more about what you need."

"Of course. You might want to find something to write this down on."

With a nod, Lancelot hurried off to the castle. Morgana took a seat on the bench by the wooden practice swords, wondering if she could call her friend in broad daylight to keep him up to date. Since deciding she couldn't, she lazily glanced around at the training grounds, cataloging the differences which were few and far between.

Suddenly, she jolted as if struck, and it took her a couple seconds to realize why. But then she saw the thinning brown hair and the slinking gait, and she knew exactly why she'd reacted so violently.

"By the stars, fuck no."

She looked around frantically for a hiding spot, and selected the tent behind her. She tried to pull up the edge of it to slip under, but her hands were shaking too badly to grip it. Her breathing was uncontrollably loud and fast, but she found that she couldn't do anything about it. Only after what felt like centuries was she finally able to scramble underneath the canvas into the tent, and she spent a while in a ball, trying to rein in her breathing.

She pulled the mirror out of her bag and took a few deep breaths before tapping it decisively.

"Hey. Hey, you there? I need you to pick up as soon as possible."

—

"...and then I saw HIM and I just had to get away—"

"Morgana," Merlin said, trying to steady his friend. "You're okay, you're okay."

"No, I'm..." The mirror briefly clouded over before Morgana's face reemerged. "I'm not. I need you to come here as quickly as possible. I need you here. I'm sorry, but I can't be here alone, and I know you're still not doing well, but please, my friend, I need you—"

"I'll be there in half an hour."

Morgana gave an audible breath of relief.

"I'll wait for you at the gate."

He tapped the glass and it clouded over for a second before clearing and turning into a normal mirror. He wrapped it in a blanket and dumped it into a bag. Nervously, and certain that he was forgetting something, the traveler circled the shack once, twice, three times, before deciding that he was all set. He glanced around at the walls, wondering if he’d ever come back. Resolving that it really didn’t matter, he lifted his arms and disappeared in a fierce gust of wind.

In what he knew consciously was an instant, he was whisked into tempestuous limbo of teleportation. He was thrown about in the arcane gale, and struggled to find exactly where he wanted to go before his stomach burst with pain and his concentration was interrupted.

He found himself appearing ten feet in the air, just below the tree canopy in the woods.

And given that gravity was still operational, he fell at 9.8 meters per second squared, and was on the ground in an instant.

For a few seconds, he lay frozen on his back, unable to even take a breath. When air finally entered his lungs, he still didn't move from the ground. His chest felt tight and sore, but he thought of Morgana, alone in Camelot, and knew that he needed to get up for her sake. So he rolled over to his stomach and pushed himself laboriously onto his knees. He bit his tongue when he felt the blood rush from his head, and forced himself to stand.

Now that he was up and potentially about, he looked around and realized he had no idea where he was. He briefly pondered if he had the energy to check the path ahead, but decided that he didn't have a choice.

His eyes flashed with magic and he sighed in relief when he saw the route to Camelot. It was far, though, so he probably wouldn't make it inside the half hour deadline that he'd set for himself. And teleporting wasn't an option because it was lucky that he'd even ended up within a half-day's walking distance of the city at all, so if he tried again he might end up going backwards.

Resigning himself to walking, he checked that nothing was broken and trudged on to Camelot.

—

Night had fallen and the moon was surrounded by her full court of stars by the time the traveler arrived in Camelot. He saw Morgana before she saw him, and hurried himself to meet her at the gate. She was standing between two Camelot guards, nervously twisting her hands in her skirt, glancing around anxiously.

When he emerged from the bushes, she gave a little shout and ran out to embrace him.

"What happened? You said half an hour!"

"I'm sorry, Morgana, I had some difficulty with the transport spell." He pulled back slightly. "He's here, though? The man who stole your magic?"

She nodded and he saw tears at the corners of her eyes.

"Well, we'll deal with that when we wake up, okay?" They pulled apart entirely and walked back into the city without any intervention from the guards. "Speaking of, I don't think we have any money. Do you have any place we can stay?"

"Yeah, I saw it when I was coming over here. It'll work."

"Perfect. Did you meet with Lancelot? I don't remember you saying."

"Oh, yeah. I did, but..." She failed to stifle a giggle. "I'm afraid I left without telling him where I was going."

The traveler sighed, but he was smiling along with her.

"I guess we'll just have to pitch the plan to him all over again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IIIIIIII did not get this beta-ed agh, so please excuse any mistakes. I've got another big chapter lined up though! So fear not! There will be more in the near future.
> 
> Also, please comment! It fuels my motivation to write and continue this, and not seeing any really makes me sad. I really appreciate seeing comments, even if I don't respond, so please write anything at all. You guys are awesome though, and I'm really glad people read this.
> 
> I'll try to write and actually beta the next chapter within two weeks, so hang in there!


	15. Intersection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crime time a la mode (our specialty flavor is Emotional Damage Only Worsened By Snarky Comments)

Arthur was reading with half an interest when the knock came at the door. It was the early afternoon and one of his less busy days, so he sighed.

"Enter," he said, sitting up on his bed. The door creaked on its hinges as it opened.

"Sire," came Lancelot's voice, "Do you have a moment? I need to talk to you."

"Yes, of course," Arthur said, a bit concerned. "What is it?"

"The strangest thing just happened, and I thought that you should know. Especially if anything comes of it, which might happen." Lancelot shifted his feet and Arthur chose to join him at the door, rather than to continue the conversation from another room.

"Alright then, out with it."

"Well, sire, I was working with the morning recruits, and the session ran long."

"Unless I'm mistaken, it tends to."

"Ah, yes, it does. But this woman came up to me when I was watching them work on their basic forms." Arthur noticed that Lancelot's forehead creased at this and he seemed to be struggling to remember something. "It was odd."

"The woman was?"

"Yes. I didn't notice her at all until she spoke.”

Arthur nodded, and leaned against the wall.

“That is unusual for you. Is it possible that you were simply occupied with the training that you were conducting?” He paused for a beat before adding “I’ve known you to be deeply involved in tasks before.”

“No.” Lancelot shook his head adamantly. “It was like she wasn’t even there until she brought attention to herself. It was like she popped out of thin air; like she was waking me up, if that makes sense. You know, when you’re dreaming and something real is making sound so it comes up in your dream and you don’t pay it any mind but when you wake up you can’t ignore it. It was like that.”

Arthur squinted. “Huh.”

“It’s the best I can describe it, sire.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” He pushed off the wall and began to pace. “Now, this woman, can you describe her at all? What did she look like?”

Lancelot’s forehead wrinkled again and he looked down at his hands. After a moment or two of agitated silence, he looked up again.

“I’m sorry, sire. But no matter how hard I try, I can’t remember anything beyond that she was a plain woman with hair down her back. She was carrying a bag, too."

"Ah, that doesn't narrow the field much." Arthur could almost feel his mouth curving into a smile and struggled to keep it in a neutral line.

"No, sire, it doesn't."

"Now, what exactly did she say to you?"

"That a mutual friend needed a favor of me, and that I would need to talk to Gaius." Lancelot paused. "I asked for more information and she said to get something to write it down on, and when I came back she was gone. She left no indication of where she'd gone."

"That's it? That's all?"

"Yes, sire. Well, no, actually, but it's not that important."

"Tell me anyways, it can't hurt."

Lancelot took a seat at the table, and Arthur noticed that his hands were shaking. He took a while to speak, and when he did, his voice was unusually quiet.

"The woman," he cleared his throat, "I asked her if it was Merlin who needed my help." Arthur waited with bated breath for Lancelot to continue. "She didn't know who it was, but she didn't say no. She didn't say no, Arthur. It might be Merlin. He could be hiding his identity or using a different name or— Arthur, it could be Merlin!"

Arthur found that he had to sit down as well.

"But— I— What reason would he have for hiding his identity?" It was too good to be true, too fortuitous, too ANYTHING to be real. "And why now? It's been nearly eight months, hasn't it? Why now, after all this time?"

"I don't know, sire," said Lancelot, remembering himself and his manners. "Maybe he's desperate now, and thought he could solve whatever ails him on his own. The woman said she'd tried to help him and he was beyond her abilities. Maybe he was captured and is only recently free. I don't know why he wouldn't have come back before now. The only thing I can say is that I can't think of any reason that's good."

Arthur sighed and pressed a hand to his forehead. A headache was creeping into it. "Lancelot, it might not be Merlin though. We can't— I don't want to get my hopes up only to be disappointed."

Lancelot nodded resignedly. "Yes, I understand. But just keep it in mind, sire. It might be Merlin. A little hope never hurt anyone." He got up from the chair and turned to leave. "Oh, the duke wanted to see you, by the way."

There wasn't any question of which duke it was.

"I'll stop by this evening then."

"Everyone will thank you for that. He's been pestering anyone who checks on him, and the poor guards outside his door really need a break."

—

As promised, Arthur made his way sluggishly over to the duke's rooms as soon as the sun started to go down. The duke put him on edge in an almost embarrassing way, and he was in no hurry to go see him. It wasn't that he'd actually done anything to warrant such distrust, but the duke just seemed like the kind of person that Merlin would warn him against trusting and then be right about, after Arthur had done everything short of offering the duke the throne. And while he didn't have Merlin anymore, he did have an echo of him that wouldn't shut up, and that was good enough for Arthur.

Before he really was ready, however, he was at the duke's door. Sighing, he knocked twice smartly, and waved to the guards to say as discreetly as he could that their suffering would be over soon.

"Come in!" called the duke from inside. Arthur entered, and saw that the duke was not only upright but trying to pull on some boots.

"Duke," he said with barely concealed surprise. "Are you going somewhere?"

"Evidently," replied Armaud smugly. "Do you take issue with that?"

"Fine, no, no, it's fine." Arthur swept regally through the room even without the cloak and stopped in front of the duke, effectively blocking him from standing. "What did you want from me? I've been told you won't stop badgering the guards at your door for me to show up."

"General things, you know, the works. Some money to rebuild my duchy, someone to send messages informing my vassals of my survival, freedom to wander around the city without the stares of your knights that I would say are closer to you than when your own mother nursed you— But oh, I forgot, she died before she got the chance and there was someone else who managed worm his way into your presence and word is that he was so loyal to you that some say you shared a heart. I heard he's dead now; how are you faring?" The duke, slimy and mocking, smirked as Arthur took an unintentional step backwards. Quickly, Armaud covered it up with a more genuine smile and profuse apologies for overstepping his bounds.

"How—" Arthur took a deep breath and tried not to show how shaken he was. "That's hardly common knowledge. How do you know any of that?"

"I know a lot of things. Gossip used to float around my stronghold like smoke from the lords' pipes." He tugged on his other boot and stood imperiously. "Also, my sincerest apologies for going after you like that. I'm used to being forced to go for the lowest blow in the politics of my duchy; it was more savage than I normally care to admit."

"Just make sure it doesn't happen again, and I will do nothing drastic in response to your impudence."

"Kind words from the king of Camelot. I'd've never thought it of you." Arthur squinted at the duke, trying to find something to say that didn't blatantly ignore the Purge and the thousands of deaths that came with it.

Lamely, he said, "Your duchy is part of Camelot." Despite the obviousness of Arthur's reply, the duke's eyes widened, and he seemed to realize his mistake.

"My lord, er, your majesty, I only meant that in that past your father— that is to say, Camelot has in the past—" Armaud looked down in his first sign of subservience since Arthur'd come in. "My apologies, sire."

"Not necessary," Arthur said dismissively. "You're not wrong about the atrocities this land has seen over the years. But I endeavor to change that, hopefully sooner rather than later if you catch my meaning."

"Oh," said the duke, not getting it. And then "OH," this time with a full understanding and a healthy dose of chagrin.

“Precisely. ‘Oh’ indeed.”

Quite unsurprisingly, the duke stumbled backwards and fell onto the bed clumsily. He started shaking, and at first Arthur thought he was having some sort of fit, but then throttled laughter burst out of the duke in jerky fits and starts and Arthur realized that he hadn’t the faintest idea of what to do with a hysterical nobleman. He wasn’t drunk (Gaius had prohibited alcohol) and he didn’t seem ill, but he was just barking out laughter like one of the crazed hyenas one of the less common merchants had brought to Camelot in a tiny cage when Arthur was too young to understand that it had been stolen from its home and its arrival was not only improbable but cruel.

“Rather a shock, that,” Armaud choked out, still shuddering with crazed laughter. “You’re just going to do it? Just like that?”

“Surely you understand that it’s not only a moral decision but a logical one, duke.” Arthur barely kept the condescension out of his voice, struggling not to speak like he did when he was trying to explain a tactic to the young child of a visiting noble. “It’s one less reason for Camelot to be attacked by magic users.”

“True, all true, my lord,” replied the duke oilily, sounding like Agravaine had when he’d been begging for his life on the cold flagstones of his room, just before Arthur had run his sword through his uncle’s chest. The coldly vivid memory brought the feeling of coldblooded murder in his own castle to sharp life, and Arthur shook it away quickly. “But what of the sorcerors who betray and attack you all the same?”

“Usually, those actions fall under breaking some other law that is far more just and sensible,” Arthur replied coolly.

“Vermin,” muttered the duke, or at the very least he muttered something that sounded suspiciously like vermin, and it was close enough to be a warranted guess. Arthur cleared his throat and the duke fidgeted, probably trying to think of what to say.

“Whatever your actions,” he said with newfound courtly dignity, “I will respect and support it." The conversation petered out after that, and the Duke took his leave not much later. Alone in the room, Arthur decided that nothing bad could really come from snooping around. It was his castle after all, he was perfectly within his rights as a monarch to do so. At first, it was hardly more than cursory, but he quickly became invested in the search. Suddenly, something very obvious hit him full force and he whipped around to look at the window of the room. It was open, and mud was tracked through it.

"Xristina!" he called to the senior guard outside. She hurried in.

"Yes, sire?" Before the door could swing closed, the guard-in-training that had been lurking outside with Xristina and Vaughn slipped inside and clapped their hands over their mouth.

"Zounds," they breathed. Xristina gave them a stern look, but no one could argue with the sentiment.

—

"And you can't just ASK him?" exclaimed Gwen incredulously after Arthur had finished explaining what he'd found in the Duke of Dore's room. He’d had to wait until the day after his discovery, simply by virtue of Gwen being too busy and difficult to find and the already-late hour.

"What? No, Gwenivere, this is far too delicate to do that! If I openly suspect him of what most people would call nothing at all, then that puts considerable strain on our relationship. This is politics, Gwen, not friendships. The solutions are rarely as simple." Arthur dragged a hand through his hair, certain that he was ripping some of it out of his scalp as he did. "And there's nothing to hold against him, barring an open window and some muck. According to Xristina, no one has gone into the duke's rooms other than myself, some of the knights, Gaius, and a select few guards who were assigned to watch him. And none of them have been in there for longer than a half an hour."

"Where does his window open to?" she asked. She hadn't visited the duke at all since he'd arrived

"I'm not sure; we're having some difficulty telling."

"That's because you've never had to find the quickest way from any given entrance to any given room," Gwen said matter-of-factly, but she seemed happy to know something that Arthur didn't. "Any servant who has been in their position longer than a year can go from an entrance on the North side of the castle to a turret in the South in under five minutes."

"Merlin certainly couldn't," Arthur muttered, but for almost the first time in nearly eight months, he didn't say 'Merlin' the way he talked about mass death. Instead, he said it like he would have before Merlin had disappeared; humorously with a touch of exasperation.

"Merlin," Gwen replied, smiling, "never wanted to."

They sat in wistful silence for longer than they needed, but Arthur wrestled himself out of a particularly pleasant memory (one of chasing Merlin through a forest and tickling him until he screamed) and knew that he had to get back to business.

"So, you can find out where it is without tying your brain up in knots?" he said, and Gwen snorted.

"Yes, Arthur, that's certainly one way of putting it. Just take me over to his room and I'll be able to tell you exactly where it is."

Within half an hour, Gwen left to get going on her chores and Arthur had a solid idea of where the duke was escaping to whenever he clambered out the window.

But there was a plethora of meetings and paperwork he had to get through before he could do anything about the duke, which was really just persecution on his own time, so Arthur spent the next eight hours of his day meeting with his council and filling out documents. He missed Merlin's presence and his un-ignorable irreverence, how much he stood out despite every aspect of his job demanding that he blend into the walls behind him. He missed Merlin's humor and ridiculous running commentary on the lords and ladies of his court. But more than anything else, Arthur had to admit that he missed Merlin, just Merlin in his entirety. There was no other way to explain it; Merlin had always been inexplicable. But the lack of companionship bit at Arthur's mind and the silence nagged at him. Not even Merlin's voice that he'd left behind nattered at him now. All he had was the pile of paperwork for repealing a law and introducing new ones and a very long line of complaints from every councilor and their mother.

It didn't help that Arthur knew next to nothing about magic. Not for the first time, he wondered what exactly went through Uther's head when he banned not only the practice of magic but the knowledge of it. If he'd seen it as his enemy, Arthur simply couldn't fathom why Uther wouldn't have made sure that he knew everything about magic that was available to him, which would make it easier to combat. But he was well aware that Uther had never been known for his sanity, and it was best to not try to unravel a madman's logic.

As the sun was nearing the horizon, a page sprinted around the corner and through the open door to his room.

"Sire," he panted breathlessly, "the Round Table has asked for your presence, immediately."

"And far be it from me to deny them that," he answered with a smirk. No matter how much he spoke to his knights like equals, it still amused him to no end how they had a habit to call on him as if they were in charge of him rather than the other way around.

He took his time shifting his papers all into somewhat organized piles while the page tried (and failed) to keep himself from tapping his foot. Eventually, the page hurried over and scolded him as if he was a very small child who was doing this all on purpose, which he almost was.

"I'll do this _for you_ , sire, just go to your meeting! Now is not the time for dawdling!"

Arthur held back a laugh; the page was hardly older than fifteen, if he had to guess. But he went anyways, his cape billowing through the hallways impressively.

"What is it?" He asked as soon as he'd gotten his head through the door to the Round Table chamber. "Has something happened?"

The knights were standing together in much the same way as they had when staged an 'intervention,' but they were much more somber this time. Lancelot took the stage instead of Percival, and he needed no sheet of paper to help remember what he was saying, and Gwaine sharpened his sword while he sat in his chair.

"Some people in the lower town have told us that they heard voices in the abandoned barn on Twenty-third street." Lancelot's face was still and worried.

"So? People pass through all the time who don't have any money. They never stay in the inns, and there's always someone lurking in places like that barn."

"No, Arthur," Lancelot said, "no one ever stays in that barn. There are marks on it that designate it as haunted according to the townspeople. They tell people about it if they see them go near it. So something happened that these people weren't warned."

"I still don't see why this has you all looking like you're ready to go into battle. Some travelers weren't warned about a barn by the more superstitious civilians. What does it matter?" Arthur looked around at his knights, and quickly picked up on the fact that only Lancelot and Gwaine really looked concerned. The rest of them seemed to share Arthur's doubts.

"We," Lancelot started, but Elyan scoffed at him and he had to start over, "I think that it might be the woman I met yesterday."

"That's quite a leap," Arthur replied skeptically. "Why do you think so?"

"Well, it would explain why no one stopped her to warn her, for starters."

Arthur waited patiently for him to continue, but Lancelot seemed to have said everything that he had to say.

"If that's all, I really don't think we have enough to warrant any action," he said, trying to end the conversation.

"Princess!" Gwaine interjected, and he sounded almost desperate. "Please. It couldn't hurt."

Arthur deliberated for a moment before making the decision to indulge him. It really was a harmless thing to do, and it was better than sending Gwaine off to drink himself into a stupor.

"Fine. If you really want to raid an abandoned barn, don't let me stop you. In fact, I'll even come along." He patted his sword, which he'd forgotten to take off after his earlier meetings. "How long will it take all of you to get ready for this?"

The knights all held up their own swords, and Arthur shrugged, amused.

"Alright then."

They filed out of the room and Arthur let Lancelot lead the way. Lance was the only person that Arthur trusted to know where they were going, after all. It didn't take long to arrive at the barn, and Arthur immediately understood what Lancelot had meant by "abandoned." Not only was it vacant, half of it had collapsed in on itself and the other half was missing a roof. There were symbols scrawled in paint across the walls, some in plain English and some in other, more esoteric scripts. But Arthur didn't need to know them to know what they said; the English made it clear enough on its own.

Lancelot pointed towards the collapsed part of the ancient structure and the knights spread out to surround it. They crept up to it in unison and heard the voices from inside.

"Did you get a chance to speak to Lance again?" asked one voice. It sounded vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough to be identifiable.

"No, the knights have all been busy with something. He hasn't been alone all day," replied a second, clearly female voice. It was definitely the voice of the woman who Lancelot had met.

"Now that I'm here, I can probably talk to him myself."

"No," said the second voice immediately with fearful firmness. "That's a terrible idea. You're in no state to go around and just," her voice was so low that it hissed bitterly, "talk to these people! You told me what happened—"

"Ancient history," the first voice interrupted.

"It was less than a year ago!"

Arthur and the other knights sent each other meaningful looks and pressed in closer.

"Yeah," the first voice sighed. "I guess you're right, but not for that reason. I just... I miss talking to people."

"What," said the second with mock indignation, "am I really that terrible of company?"

"No! No. But you know what I mean."

There was some quiet rustling and then some low humming.

"It'll be okay, my friend. It'll be alright."

It was then that Arthur gave the signal, and the knights crashed over debris and through thin walls. In a bare instant, they were holding the woman and the other person very still on opposite side of the space. The other person had a hood which covered their face and they weren't struggling, but the woman was biting and kicking and yelling.

"Stop moving!" called the hooded person a bit frantically. "Don't do anything to provoke violence from them!"

"I thought you trusted the Knights of Camelot!" she yelled back, still flailing in Percival's grip.

"I trust them to an extent! Right now, I don't know what they'll do, so please don't get yourself killed!"

That brought the woman's efforts to an end, and she panted for breath with a murderous look in her eyes.

"Thank you," Arthur said, making it clear that he was in charge. He stalked over to the hooded person and revealed their face.

He faltered as he saw the curving scar the the base of their face, still red and angry, and then the tiny other cuts scattered across their face and he knew instantly that this man, the man who had come to Camelot for Gaius' help, was the same sorceror that he'd been hunting for some eight months. But he nearly lost his ability to breathe when he saw the rest of the sorceror's face, because he could never forget the face of the man who was responsible for Merlin's vanishment, no matter how many scars obscured his features.

"You," he growled.

"Arthur," replied the sorceror evenly.

There was a frozen second of silence where no one moved or said a word.

"Take him to the dungeons!" ordered Arthur as he struggled to contain his rage.

As Gwaine and Leon dragged him outside and out of sight, he screamed to his companion.

"It'll be alright! I promise you, Ana, it'll be alright! You can visit me, okay? You can visit me! Everything will be okay, don't worry, it'll all be okay!"

The woman, who until then had looked ready to rip the head off the first person to talk to her, suddenly slumped over. Percival had needed to hold her down before, but now she stared at the hole in the wall that the sorceror had been dragged through with horror and fear. Lancelot rounded on her and grabbed the collar of her dress.

"Is that the man you wanted me to help?!" Without giving her a chance to answer, he continued angrily. "Is it? Because that man is responsible for the death of my best friend! Is that the man you wanted me to help or not!?"

The woman coughed roughly, and Lancelot dropped her, suddenly disgusted with himself. Arthur put a hand on his shoulder.

"Save it for later." He stared directly at the woman, who seemed to regain her fury when she met his eyes, and kept his voice level. "We're going to take you in for questioning. Fighting us will not end well for you, as your friend pointed out, so I would recommend not doing so."

"You 'would?' " she asked warily.

"Yes. I would, but given who it is that you're helping, I don't really care how it ends for you. So hear this: if something terrible and unexpected happens while you're incarcerated, I might just overlook it. Do I make myself quite clear?"

She nodded, and if anything her anger only seemed to burn hotter in her eyes.

"Good," said Arthur. He waved his hand and Percival dragged her off to a room for questioning. Elyan tagged along, but Percival had it all well in hand and he couldn't do much to help.

Arthur's hand was still on Lancelot's shoulder, and he could, incidentally, feel him shaking.

"Sire, I'm sorry for how I lashed out like that with the woman. It was highly unprofessional." Lancelot's hands were clenched into fists and a muscle in his forehead bulged. Arthur realized that he really wasn't too surprised by the sudden, violent shift in Lancelot's demeanor. He had put so much hope into one possibility, and the result went so much farther than disappointment. To have such optimism and then to come up short would probably sent more volatile men (read: Gwaine) into an alcohol-fueled killing spree. Comparatively, Lancelot was admirably restrained.

"It's fine. I'd even say that it was justified. Just next time wait until we have all the answers, hm?"

"Right."

"And now, the two of us are going to go get those answers," Arthur said in a dangerous voice. "And nothing and no one is going to stop us."

—

Half-obscured by the shadows of the barely-candlelit room, Arthur stared the sorceror down. He had opted not to interrogate him in the dungeons and instead taken him to one of the rooms in the center of the castle, where there were no windows. And even though the sorceror wasn't physically behind bars, his hands were tied together with rough rope and they alternated between resting on the table and flailing wildly in the air. He kept moving his hands as if he forgot it was there. He twisted them back and forth, moved as if trying to make wide gestures, and clapping to illustrate various points. His scar changed how his mouth moved and it almost looked like it was dancing as he chattered. Not that any of what he was saying had anything to do with Arthur had asked him; the man simply seemed to enjoy talking.

"The oddest things happen when you have nowhere to be," the man was saying. "Really. When you aren't trying to keep yourself in check or go anywhere it particular, you see so much more and you do things that you'd never even consider otherwise. It's so freeing. I'd never had the oppurtunity, and I suppose I have you to thank for that, when you think of it. If you'd never 'executed' me, I never would have had the time or lack of commitments to do it. Being dead was, ironically, the first time I really lived. So thanks, even if you didn't mean for it to happen. Also—"

"What have you done with Merlin?" asked Arthur, cutting him off. He’d long past lost any patience he'd had with the ridiculous man and wished he would just answer the damn questions put to him.

The sorceror stopped dead and gaped at Arthur.

"Done— done with what?"

"Merlin, my manservant."

"I don't— I don't know anyone by that name. Ergo, I haven't done anything to him." The words came haltingly however, as if the sorceror wasn't sure of them.

"Don't lie."

The sorceror waved his bound hands exasperatedly. "For once, your majesty with the head of a root vegetable, I'm not."

"What do you mean, for once?" Arthur inquired with genuine curiosity. The sorceror shook his head.

"Never mind, never mind. It's nothing to do with you."

But the pieces started to come together in Arthur's mind, and he thought about the coin he'd found and the trail from a blown out grate. He touched the scarf in his pocket.

"You lived in Camelot."

The sorceror looked up with fear in his wide eyes. "I— no, I— No!"

"You lived in Camelot, and you knew it well. Well enough that you knew how to get out of the city without being seen. You had access to the castle somehow, and you knew it just as well as you knew the city." Arthur paused, waiting for the sorceror to deny something, but he was just staring at Arthur, gobsmacked. "You didn't tell anyone, which is understandable, but instead bided your time to strike at the heart of Camelot—"

"No! That's not what I did!"

Arthur stilled, staring at the sorceror.

"I didn't plan on ever attacking you, your father, or your kingdom," the sorceror reiterated, calmer this time.

"Why not? My father did plenty wrong by you and your people."

"Because it's important to me that you don't do the same thing! If I had attacked you, hurt the people you care about, burned down your home— what would that have done, in the long run? What would that have proven to you?" His hands waved around expressively in motions stunted by the rope. He paused as if waiting for a response but Arthur was silent for a beat too long and the sorceror continued, his scar twisting and moving distractingly. "That all magic was evil and corrupted people. That's not true, but the laws of Camelot prevent you from ever meeting sorcerors who have no interest in your death because the only magic you encounter is that of desperate, angry people with nothing to lose. Anyone with a kinder disposition is too scared to expose themselves."

"Magic itself might not corrupt people, but the power it lends does."

The sorceror tried to cross his arms, failed, and looked away. "It's clear you've made up your mind about that. I don't want to get into that right now."

Arthur scowled.

"You admit that you were a citizen of Camelot?"

The scar stilled, and the sorceror nodded.

"Where did you live?"

A pause.

"With my uncle," he answered through gritted teeth.

"And who is your uncle?"

"A servant of the court," he said, still in the same way.

Arthur crossed his arms, trying not to whine at how unspecific the sorceror was being.

"How long did you live in Camelot?"

"Six years."

"Is that including or excluding the eight months following your execution?"

"Excluding."

"What brings you back?"

"I need the physician's assistance and experience. I initially was going to stay at home, but my friend needed me to help her."

Arthur narrowed his eyes. It was just specific enough to satisfy initial questions, and just vague enough to only raise more. It was exactly how every other sorceror had spoken to him, but it felt familiar in a fond way, rather than an antagonistic one.

"Why were you going to stay home?"

"Medical reasons." The sorceror rolled his eyes.

"What exactly are those?"

A scoff.

"As if you don't know."

"If I knew, would I be asking?"

"I don't know, Arthur Pendragon. I don't know how different you are. I don't know what it did to you yet." The sorceror frowned at him with what almost seemed to be regret. The look almost lingered too long to be insincere, but he shut it down and his face melted back into irritated neutrality.

"What WHAT did to me?"

A pained expression crossed the sorceror's face again, and this time he wasn't able to squash it.

"You keep asking me what I did with Merlin, and I keep telling you I don't know anyone with that name. But they must be important to you, and if they're gone, I don't know how that affects you." He sighed, and slumped forwards a bit. "I hate seeing people like this. When they've lost someone important, it's like their whole world doesn't make quite the same sense to them anymore. Desperate measures are suddenly logical; desperate times are when one wakes up in the morning. It broke your father, Pendragon, don't let it break you too."

Arthur stared. The way the sorceror spoke was almost like he cared about Arthur, about what happened to him. And he'd clearly seen some terrible things over the years, judging by how his voice seemed to fall into grief and he moved like he was holding the weight of a thousand bad decisions.

Just as Arthur was about to prompt the man again for his 'medical reasons' for coming to Camelot, the sorceror yelped and started to clutch at his stomach. He started to hyperventilate, and he was so focused on trying to steady himself that he didn't seem to realize he was falling off the chair until he'd already landed on the ground. Arthur took a step forward, hesitated, and stopped. The sorceror had fallen out of the light, and Arthur wasn't sure what was going on.

"Get Ana," the sorceror rasped from the floor. "Get Ana if you want me to continue to talk to you. She's the only one who can help me right now."

He started to say something else, but began to retch before he could form a word.

Arthur opened the door to the room and barked "Get the woman" to Lancelot who was standing outside. Then he closed it softly and edged towards the sorceror, hand on his sword hilt. He could just make out the lump of the sorceror's body on the ground as he shook.

"What's wrong with you?" he asked. It was mostly rhetorical, but there was something about the sorceror that made him feel concerned. Maybe it was just that the scarred man held all the answers.

"You really, honestly don't know, do you?" the sorceror gritted out hoarsely. "I thought you were just trying to embarrass me. But you really— oh, fuck— you really don't know. You DID THIS to me, and you don't even know what you did. Oh that's— that's priceless."

It was then that the door exploded open, and the woman— Ana, the sorceror had called her— barged in frantically. She shoved Arthur aside and picked up the sorceror's supine figure delicately.

"Where does it hurt? Shit. What can I do?"

"Ana," croaked the sorceror, sweat pouring down his face, "he doesn't know."

Arthur looked between the two of them, not comprehending what was going on.

"What?" asked Ana urgently. "Who doesn't know what?"

"Dammit, you know who!"

"That's bullshit. He DID this, you told me— You said he was responsible! How could he not know?" She was shaking the man now, but she looked afraid.

"I don't know but, Ana, you can't do it. No matter what happens, don't go that far."

There was clearly something Arthur was missing, some history the two of them had that would unlock the whole exchange, but he couldn't even begin to guess at it. So instead he stood away from them, trying to catch up.

Ana didn't seem very happy with what her friend was saying.

"Fine."

A second later, the sorceror fell limp, and Ana appeared relieved that he was no longer exerting himself. She looked up at Arthur, resentment burning in her eyes.

"You did this," she hissed. "He may not be angry with you, but I AM, and I won't let this go."

"I don't even know who he is," Arthur said almost petulantly. "What do you think I did?"

"That's for him to tell you," she said with a scoff. "But all you need to know is that he is my friend, and my first and only loyalty is to him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Woop! That’s chapter 15 done! Things that don’t make sense will be explained/made sense of in later chapters, so plase bear with me, I know it’s kind of weird in some bits!
> 
> The second scene with Arthur and the duke is something I’m really happy with, for a really stupid reason: There are 26 paragraphs, and each one starts with a word in an alphabetical sequence. Which is why someone is named Xristina, and someone else uses the really old swear “zounds” (god’s wounds) which is maybe the more common one over “splud” and also the more convenient one for trying to write alphabetically. It really forced me to vary how I structured sentences and wrote, and I think it was a very helpful exercise, all in all.
> 
> My beta is the lovely @WolvaraAsh, who’s on basically every social media that immediately comes to mind. Her art is absolutely gorgeous, I actually own six physical pieces of hers, and they’re just brilliant. So go check her out!


	16. When the Mask Slips Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Woo-hoo! We're back in a cell again, good times

The traveler stared through the bars of the cell, drinking in his first clear view of Arthur's face. He'd missed seeing him, missed watching how his eyes glinted when the sun hit them. He was satisfied to see that whoever had taken over his former responsibilities of polishing Arthur's armor had done a good job; no matter how much he had complained, it was a source of pride for him.

Wordlessly, Arthur stepped into the cell. There was no noise from his footsteps or from his cloak dragging through the straw, and everything seemed unnervingly muted. The traveler touched his ears concernedly, wondering if he'd hit his head. He couldn't imagine when he might have done that.

Something was wrong with his face. It felt like it was slipping. Maybe it was falling. Perhaps melting. But whatever was going on, it was terrifying, and only happened faster the closer Arthur was.

The traveler poked at his forehead, desperately trying to keep it from falling or whatever was going on with it, to no avail. It slipped around his fingers like river muck and kept going.

He waved his hand, trying to summon a mirror or a wall, something to hide behind or see himself through. But nothing came. Sparks blew out of his palms like taunts, and then the spells fizzled and died. He tried again. And again. And again. Nothing.

He cursed, but nothing came out of his mouth. No words came to his lips.

His face had slipped down far enough to uncover everything above his nose, and the cold air of the dungeons stung. He could still see, which perplexed him, and worse than anything he could see Arthur's face as it happened. He looked horrified. Disgusted. Confused. Hurt.

It didn't take him long to realize it was because of him, and he felt tears leak from his eyes. He wanted to put them back. He wanted Arthur to look at him like he had when they shoved each other around on the ramparts, not like a stranger with two heads and scorpion tail.

He hid his face.

And within a second, Arthur pried his hands away.

Arthur's mouth moved, and his face was awed.

It moved again, and this time a whisper came with it, too quiet to hear even an inch away.

His face was dripping off his chin into a void, and he struggled to wrestle his hands out of Arthur's grip to no avail. Arthur was so close that that they were practically breathing together.

"Merlin," he said.

The traveler promptly felt his stomach drop.

"Merlin," Arthur said again, as if relishing the word. "Merlin. I found you."

The traveler shook his head desperately, but he saw his reflection in Arthur's eyes. He looked like he had in Camelot— gangly with sharp cheekbones and uncut black hair. Worst of all, he was recognizable.

"No," he whispered, frightened.

And within a second, Arthur's hands were ripped by a fierce wind from the traveler's wrists and the monarch was flung outside into the hallway of the dungeons. There was a split moment in which they stared at each other in a mix of fear and horror before the wind gusted through again and Arthur disappeared, leaving nothing to say that he'd ever been there other than the door to the dungeon slamming closed.

—

His eyes opened suddenly, and he sat up without a thought to the pain that still lanced up his side. He summoned the mirror out of the tear and stared at himself. He was satisfactorily hidden again. Even though he had cast it and he could feel the magic obscuring him from Arthur and everyone he came across, it was comforting to see it. Nervous, he shoved some more magic at the glamour, trying to do anything to reinforce it and maintain it. It felt almost warm now, like a blanket. He dismissed the mirror and took comfort in his deception.

Trying to calm himself down, he let red threads of magic flow out of his fingers and roll around him.

Abruptly, the door to the dungeon banged open and Arthur stormed in, wearing only his night clothes and some boots. He stopped in front of the traveler's cell, stared at him for a few seconds, and then turned on his heel and stormed back out.

The traveler went back to sleep, this time with his back to the door so as to hide his tears.

—

"Hey," said an unfamiliar voice harshly. The sound of metal angrily hitting metal reverberated through the cell. "Get up. Have some food."

Too tired to stage a political protest through refusing food, he accepted the meal without protest. It wasn't much, only some bread, water, and meat, but he was grateful to have even that. Hunger wasn't any fun at all, and it was better to accept food than to reject it.

"Thanks," he said quietly. The guard seemed surprised that he'd spoken.

"Oh," they said. "You're welcome."

He retreated to the far corner of the cell and picked at his food, trying to pluck up an appetite. He didn't have one, and wondered if he could keep food in the tear without it spoiling.

At long last, he decided that if he was going to be in a dungeon for however long it took to get out or be executed again, he needed to eat consistently. Seeing no other option, he picked up the thin strip of meat and started to munch on it grudgingly. There wasn't anything to do in the cell except play with illusions and risk discovery through reading his spellbook. If he didn't get out soon, he knew that he would lose his mind.

So for the time being, he occupied himself by tearing up the bread and making faces on the cheap, tin pan that served as a plate. And when he was done eating that, he resorted to doing tricks with the plate. He wouldn't dream of ever damaging it— he knew how much of a pain it was to have to hammer things back into shape— but he didn't see anything wrong with making it fly and loop around.

Without warning other than some shouts that were just far away enough that he couldn't understand them, Morgana flew through the dungeon door and skidded to a halt in front of his cell. The plate plummeted to the floor with a clang.

"Hey!" She looked wild, like she hadn't slept and instead had resolved to badger the guards until they let her in, which she probably had. Her hair was a mess and quickly returning to its former knotted state that the traveler had spent painstaking hours trying to undo, and a bruise was blossoming on her jaw.

"What happened to you?" he asked with mild disapproval. "Please tell me you didn't go around picking fights while I've been down here. It's only been half a day."

"That," she tossed her head and dragged her fingers through her hair, "is exactly what I've been doing. That and getting interrogated by Arthur. He wouldn't let me see to you after you passed out, the prat. Instead he asked me bullshit questions like if I knew you had magic. I can't tell if he's really just that thick or he likes boring me with shit like that."

The traveler sighed and tried desperately to compose himself.

"Okay." He took a few deep breaths. "And how is it that you got in here, exactly?"

"I tossed a rubber ball down to the guards' post and didn't realize how fucking bouncy it was. It caused all sorts of havoc, and I sprinted here while the guards tried to pin it down." She grinned at him. "Well, more accurately, I threw it at someone's jaw and started a fist fight. Tomato, to-mah-to."

He laughed. "Sometimes I have a hard time believing that you're a real person."

"Fear not, my friend. I'm as real as you." She reached through the cell bars and he took her hand. They squeezed once and sat together for a long while.

—

Morgana was still in the dungeons when Arthur barged in again, this time fully dressed. Thankfully, she wasn’t in the dead center of the room anymore but rather near the wall. Both she and the traveler had lapsed into a companionable silence nearly an hour before, and they were perfectly content to continue with it.

The traveler stood, instantly prepared for confrontation. He cursed the fear that leapt into his chest whenever he saw Arthur. It felt like a bright cloud in his rib cage, trying to suffocate him. Once upon a time, seeing Arthur had been something to look forward to, no matter how many frivolous chores Arthur assigned.

"Sire," he said, giving Arthur a short bow. Arthur stopped short and stared at him, surprised. "Pleasant, ah, afternoon? Isn't it?"

"More of an evening, truth be told," Arthur replied airily. For those that didn't know him, he sounded aloof and in control, but the traveler heard the shift in pitch and caught the way he touched the pommel of his sword. Arthur had been caught off guard, and the traveler knew to press this to his advantage.

"To what do I owe this pleasure, your majesty? I don't imagine that you've come to your senses about letting me out. I posed no threat to you the first time around, and I bear you no new ill will." He flashed Arthur a winning smile. "So why don't you just let me out, and I'll go about my business without bothering you."

"What— I—," Arthur spluttered some more and then seemed to compose himself. It was a familiar process that the traveler had guided him through before. "I came to ask how you escaped your execution."

He grinned and waggled his fingers mischievously.

"Magic."

Arthur rolled his eyes.

"Plenty of other sorcerors have died on a pyre. None of them reappeared eight months later with a renewed death wish." He crossed his arms and his face grew more serious. "We knew something was wrong because of how the fire behaved, but it was suggested that the fire was simply consuming your magic as a fuel."

The traveler hummed, wondering if that was possible. Gaius had probably put the idea forward and he decided it might be worth asking him about later.

"And what exactly was your explanation for how I, as you put it, 'reappeared eight months later with a renewed death wish?' How did you explain that?"

"An illusion, maybe, or a curse. Some sort of deceptive spell that was sent to distract us."

He nodded, thinking that he might've thought the same in their shoes.

"Interesting, but the truth is simpler. I used a transportation spell to get as far away from Camelot as possible." He laughed bitterly. "It would've been nice not to have to, but at that point my options were, shall we say, limited."

They stared at each other for a beat. Arthur looked defensive and more than a little bit angry. It was such a familiar expression that the traveler started to smile, which only served to make Arthur scowl. The traveler's mouth twitched and before he knew it he was laughing hysterically.

"What," growled Arthur. "What! What's so funny to you?!"

He couldn't answer. Laughter erupted from him, and no matter how irrational it was, he couldn't find the control to stop. It just felt so goddamn hilarious to be sitting across from Arthur as a stranger and confounding him as he would a friend. And the fact that Arthur wasn't in on the joke only seemed to add to how ridiculous it was.

Arthur pressed up against the cell bars, refusing to enter but still intending to be intimidating. "Are you insane?"

Morgana's friend sobered at that.

"No," he said quietly. "No, I am not. I am as sane as I've ever been."

"And how sane is that, exactly? Your choice to practice magic in Camelot doesn't exactly speak in your favor." Arthur crossed his arms. There was something off about his face, something that reminded the traveler of meetings with frustrating councilors and unflappable courtiers and an edge in his voice that sounded like being found in the stables and not having done any work. "In fact, that fact that you practice magic at all makes it just a bit difficult to trust your sanity. Surely you know how it corrupts and taints everyone who uses it."

He stared at Arthur in horror. Those were, without a doubt, Uther's words falling from Arthur's mouth. Were they sincere? It felt like they certainly could be. Arthur had admitted his hatred of magic in the past and it was probably stronger than ever now. His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water, and pressure mounted in his chest until he couldn't stand it anymore and words exploded out of him in a desperate plea for understanding.

"No! That's not how magic works! Magic is a tool, like a hammer or a quill or a sword. There is nothing inherently good or bad in it, just as there is nothing inherently good or bad in anything else. Swords have killed just as many, if not more, as magic has." He barely paused for breath. "I know that last night you mentioned something on this order, but I swear to you that magic isn't evil, and the only corruption comes from desperation and new power. The only people who fall to that would fall to any other power as well, be it the crown, an army, an audience even. Magic has been present in my life since I was born, and there are people all over the continent who feel it, feel the life of the world surrounding them at all times, even if they can't manipulate it. There's a sensitivity to it even if they themselves don't control it. Just as you probably are able to read politics and betrayal before it happens but can't stop it from happening. I may have made a terrible decision to come to Camelot, but I never chose to study magic. I have it whether I want it or not, and studying magic was imperative to my own safety. If you think that my existence is a sin, then fine. Plenty of people do. But don't for a second tell me that I'm corrupted from birth when you were born by the same power!"

Arthur was shocked into silence.

The traveler felt his hands shake and decided to scooch to the back wall to hide.

"That," said Arthur, his voice low and deadly, "is none of your business."

"You," he replied, mimicking Arthur's inflection, "are a judgmental prat and I'll say what I like."

"No one knows about that!" Arthur snapped, and the traveler realized that fear had edged into his expression. "Nobody knows what my father did, but you do. Who told you?! How do you know?!"

"No one told me, your majesty. No one. I just know." It was a weak excuse, but Arthur knew precious little about magic and he was maybe the one person it would work on. "I know about a lot of things to do with magic."

Arthur sighed heavily and leaned against the wall. "You said something about magic being around you since birth? One of your parents— they practiced too?"

"No." He shook his head. "Well, yes, but not the parent that I knew. I myself have had magic since before I can remember. My mother could barely keep up with how my powers expanded, or so she said. I have never been without it, and I never had the option to forgo it."

His hands were shaking so much that his arms started to shake too, and then it seemed like all the strength that had previously been in his arms was all being shaken out along with his confidence, self-assurance, and ability to talk. He'd just admitted his magic to the one person that he had really, truly been determined to hide it from. He had always supposed that Uther knowing would result in his death, but Arthur would probably never believe the accusations enough to be angry with his friend. Gwen would've hidden it with him, and Morgana... Well, he knew what Morgana would do.

But Arthur would hate him. Arthur would believe that he was contaminated, that he was a liar, that he had betrayed him. And then he wouldn't know what to do, and there would be no way to fix the damage done to their relationship.

At least Arthur hadn't the faintest idea who he was.

But being back in Camelot seemed to ruin the careful detachment that he had tried to cultivate over the last eight months. When he saw Arthur's face, it was impossible to forget the years they'd spent together. Every time he met Arthur's eyes, memories crashed into him as if they were happening all for the first time except all at once.

It felt like a special kind of torture to have to sit in a cell and catch only antagonistic glances of his best friend. Like the universe was intent on making sure he always drew the short straw. Like fate, which had apparently so meticulously designed his destiny, enjoyed making him suffer as much as humanly possible, far past whatever he thought he could actually endure.

Arthur seemed to be just as deep in thought as he was.

Then, quietly, Arthur spoke and his heart jumped.

"I'm trying to legalize magic right now."

Strength returned invigoratingly to his muscles. The traveler rushed to the cell door and pressed his face as far through the cell bars as he could and spoke with more intensity than he intended. "Say that again!"

Arthur staggered backwards, a guarded look on his face, and the traveler felt a twinge of regret. "I said that I'm in the process of legalizing magic."

The weight of more than half a decade of fear lifted, and his grip slipped from the bars. Without realizing it, he fell to the ground.

Legalizing magic.

Legalizing magic.

Arthur was legalizing magic.

Choked breaths shuddered through his lungs like demented laughter. He'd waited and wished for this for so long and now the day was finally here.

He thought of Arthur's disgust of magic and what had sounded like a sincere question of the morality of anyone who practiced it. He knew that it had been rooted in Morgana's betrayal no matter how much Arthur feigned indifference to her duplicity.

Suddenly, his helium euphoria evaporated and forlorn suspicion replaced it.

"Are you shitting me right now?"

Arthur twitched — he'd never liked the more vulgar language that the peasants that surrounded him employed — but shook his head. "No, I promise that I am being completely honest about that."

"And your little criticism of me and mine?"

At that, Arthur smirked, clearly pleased with himself. "Just a way to see where you stood. No way to do that quite like provoking someone. Of course, it's also the most entertaining, but that's beside the point."

The traveler winced, thinking of how he'd thought that he had caught Arthur off guard. He'd thought that he'd had an advantage over Arthur, thought that he was pressing an advantage to be friendly. But Arthur had played him like a fiddle. He hated it when Arthur really did prove that he was more than an oblivious clotpole. 

"I see," was what he settled on as a reply. "What exactly did you want to gauge my character for? You weren't nearly so eager to hear my side of the story last time."

"Well, it came to my attention that my actions last time were unjustified and more than a bit terrible of me. So I don't intend to repeat them." Arthur looked a bit guilty and like he was making a very poor effort to cover it up.

"And that's the closest thing to an apology that I'm going to get, isn't it?" The traveler smiled at Arthur and after a few seconds of seeming to take offense, Arthur smiled back.

"Yes, I think so."

"So, can you let me out now? I mean, if you aren't going to repeat what happened last time, then you aren't going to leave me in here to rot, are you?"

The tentatively amiable mood failed instantly, and Arthur immediately went back to scowling. The traveler put his hands up placatingly.

"Sorry," he said, "it's just that, you know, you said that you were legalizing magic. So you can't keep me here on that. And I can escape whenever I like, I'd just rather that it's legal for me to leave, rather than having to be on the lookout all the time."

"You're still to blame for my friend disappearing." Arthur refused to meet his eyes. Something is his heart felt light at Arthur calling him 'friend,' and he tried not to smile, knowing that it would be completely inappropriate under the circumstances.

He sighed. 

"I don't know where you got that idea, but I promise that I'm not. I keep telling you you're wrong, and you keep not listening to me. So let me say one thing before you leave, because I'm sure you will." Arthur nodded, indicating that he could continue. "You can probably do whatever you want to me. But I survived once before. I escaped easily. How much do think you can do to me? How important is it to you that I die in this cell? I haven't been causing you any problems. I meant to stay out of your way, too, but you decided to come to me. Now, I just want to care of this bloody curse and fix a few other things and be on my way. I promise; I swear on my life." It hurt to say that, to promise not to stay near Arthur, but there was precious little he could do from inside the cell.

"I'd rather you stay where I can find you," Arthur replied, dodging the comment about the futility of imprisonment. He looked a bit unnerved, but he didn't remark on whatever it was that had disconcerted him.

The traveler tried to hide his surprise, and was for once successful. "Sure, then. I'll stay in Camelot."

"And you'll be assigned a guard. Don't try to ditch them, or you'll find yourself back behind these bars. Do you understand me?" Arthur leaned in close to the door. "Those are the terms of your freedom."

He smiled.

"I understand you perfectly."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! I promise that I'll answer things about the curses and glamours in the next Merlin chapter, so while you are of course welcome to ask, I might have to just tell you that it will be answered in the future! Drop me comments or kudos if you liked it, and I'll do my very best to get the next chapter up sooner than I got this one up because JEEZ this was later than I wanted it to be. I scrapped the first draft, so that really set me back, and as long as that doesn't happen again I'll probably stay on track for updates.
> 
> Also, I aimed to have this fic down by the end of the year but I am definitely not going to make that deadline so I'll have to shoot for a half-way point or something by the holidays. So, sorry about that, but I'm doing my best! November always makes me scream because of NaNoWriMo and all that even though I'm not even signed up I still feel the pressure of it for some reason. I've already started the next chapter, too, so not to worry! Updates are on their way.
> 
> As per usual, my beta is the most extraordinarily wonderful @wolvaraash, and she is on everything. Everywhere. You cannot escape her gaze. She sees all, knows all. She told me about how you dipped those full carrots into tomato soup on Thursday. Shame on you.


	17. Jigsaw

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angst. As if we didn't already have enough of it

Arthur paced feverishly in his dark room, raking his hand through his hair. He muttered to himself and stopped every few minutes to grimace at the hairs that he'd ripped out of his head. But it was only a temporary distraction from the thoughts that ran rampant through his mind.

"Careful, Arthur, we don't want you to shed too much. That cat of Seta's is doing a fine job on its own." Gwen watched him concernedly from a chair.

"It just doesn't make sense, Gwen!" Arthur replied shrilly, stomping with even more agitated intensity.

"You keep saying that, and I still don't know what doesn't make sense. Why don't you calm down and tell me exactly what's confusing you?"

Arthur flopped into a chair, tapping his foot nervously with his arms crossed. He refused to meet Gwen's eyes. She waited patiently, as she always did, because she definitely knew that was how to get Arthur to start talking. She was almost as bad as Merlin in that respect; he'd always known how to destroy any barriers that Arthur had and to start any conversation, whether Arthur wanted to have it or not.

"Arthur," she prodded, and immediately anything that might’ve held Arthur back from answering dissolved, leaving his concerns to flood the air no matter what he intended.

“I told you before about my dreams,” he started, all in a rush, “and how it felt more like a dialogue than a one-sided speech. But I had another one. The night that we captured the sorceror. And in it Merlin was the sorceror, which at first I was overjoyed by! I mean, I knew where he was! It felt like a miracle. Until I woke up, that is. Or even before then, really.” Arthur looked down and sighed. “He looked so scared when I saw him in my dream. H-he looked like he was about to die.” Arthur paused, reconsidering. “No. He didn’t look like he was about to die; he’s never been very worried about that. It was… much, much worse.” He put his head in his hands. “Gwen, I- I don’t even know if I can describe it. I don’t really have anything to compare it to, to be honest. Everything about it seemed so muted, so much less than the other dreams I’ve had, but somehow it was ten times worse. It felt like everything was crumbling down around me and destroying everything except me, in this dream. Merlin was there but he wasn’t, like a ghost or a phantom. It was horrible, Gwen. Positively horrible.”

For a moment, Gwen said nothing. She ran the pad of her thumb back and forth over her fingers and stared off into space. Then suddenly, froze and fixed Arthur with a stare.

“Wait, Arthur, start over. You had a dream with the sorceror and the sorceror was Merlin? Which you knew how, exactly? And he was scared out of his wits, for some reason.” Gwen took a deep, steadying breath and gestured towards Arthur as if saying that he should do the same. “Please, go into more detail about that before moving on to anything else."

Arthur took a breath as advised and began again, his voice only marginally steadier.

"In my dream, I was in the dungeons, looking at the sorceror. I couldn't hear properly. I went into the cell, and the sorceror's face looked like it was melting off. But there was another face under it, and more to the point, Merlin face." Arthur cracked his knuckles nervously. "He tried to do something with his hand, something magic, and sparks flew out of it. But that was it. Then he covered his face like he was embarrassed and I had to pull his hands away to get a good look at him. As I said before, he looked like he was terrified when he saw me."

He looked down, and didn't say anything else.

"That was it? That was your dream?"

Arthur paused, and pondered whether or not to include the gust of wind that had thrown him down a hallway like a piece of lint. Not to mention how Merlin had started crying at the very sight of Arthur.

"Yep," he said, "That was my dream."

"Okay then. So what did you do after that?"

"I wanted to know if it had actually happened, of course. So I ran down to the dungeons to check and of course it wasn't real. The sorceror was just sitting there, playing with magic like he was taunting me." Arthur closed his eyes, trying to wrap up everything that had run through his mind and bury it before it could swallow him again. He clenched his fists. "Then I went back down again, just a few hours ago."

"How did that go?" asked Gwen, sounding like she was certain that it had gone very poorly. Arthur allowed himself a smirk.

"Surprisingly well, actually. Got some information that I'll need to follow up on. But the most pressing, at least as I see it," he shuddered briefly, "is the 'curse' that the sorceror mentioned. Both he and his friend, Ana, mentioned that I did something to him. And unless I'm completely on the wrong track, I think that this ‘curse’ is it. I think that, however preposterous it sounds, I did something to the man. I caused something to happen, something terrible enough that he's willing to risk coming back to Camelot to solve."

Gwen considered this for a moment, and Arthur watched how her face moved as she mulled it over.

"Arthur, until we hear something conclusive, I move to file that under 'horseshit.'"

He rocked backwards, surprised. "What?"

"What could you have possibly done to that man? You looked for him, yes. You tried to execute him, yes again. But cursed him, somehow? No. Absolutely not. You don't even have the ability to. Without magic, you can't curse people. That follows logically. You don't have magic, so you can't curse people. You see? Simple logic." She scooted the chair forwards until she could reach his shoulder. "Have you gone to ask Gaius about this at all? I'm sure he'll put your mind at ease."

Arthur shook his head.

"Well then, let's go now. Gaius is surely awake. It's not that late in the evening." She stood and held out a hand. He took it, and wondered if it had always been so calloused.

She led him through the hallways, which he thought was a bit silly given that he knew the way perfectly well on his own. There was enough time to talk though, so they did.

"What else did you talk about?" Gwen asked.

"I said I'd let him out as long as he had a chaperone with him. I don't know who I'll assign though. I don't think that giving him a random guard will really suffice. It has to be one of the knights." He frowned to himself, thinking it over again. "Lancelot, maybe. What do you think?"

"I think that most of the Round Table knights would take the first opportunity to leave him dead in a ditch." Gwen shifted her grip but didn't stop walking. "It doesn't matter if he really did or not, at this point. There's enough that implicates him in Merlin's disappearance that they'd do anything to get back at him, justified or not. Lancelot and Gwaine are the worst options, definitely. Unless you want to intimidate him. But then again, Percival is probably the best for keeping him alive and also scaring him into not causing you any trouble. Elyan might be a good choice too; he's good at staying neutral."

Arthur nodded, deep in thought. "Thanks."

"Anytime."

A couple minutes later, they arrived at Gaius' door. Gwen knocked loudly, and Arthur wrenched his hand out of her grip while her focus was elsewhere. Gaius opened the door almost instantaneously.

"Gwen, sire. Do come in." He stood aside, letting them through. "I suppose this is about the funeral we discussed last week?"

Gwen spun around to stare at Arthur in surprise, and he carefully avoided her gaze. "No, Gaius. That is, we certainly need to address that. But that isn't the intent of this visit."

"Then what, may I ask, is?"

"It's about the sorceror. He mentioned a curse, and I hope I have enough information to find out what it is." He shifted, trying to hide his fidgeting. "Do you have anything that might give us a clue about whatever affected the sorceror?”

“Well, sire,” Gaius said, wiping his hands of some invisible stain, “that depends on what you have to tell me.”

"The curse, as I understand it, causes intermittent pain. But it's very intense; brutal enough to distract from everything else."

"Arthur." Gaius stared at him almost disappointedly. "That's ridiculously unspecific. Lots of curses cause pain. That information is next to useless. It would have been more helpful if you'd said something like 'it's triggered to being cut by an enchanted spear' or something but—"

"Wait." Arthur put up a hand. "I think— hmm. Yes, okay."

Gwen punched him lightly on the shoulder. "Arthur? Clarification would be nice, preferably on the order of now."

"Yes, of course." He cleared his throat. "I think I know what causes the curse. When Martha appeared in the council meeting, she said that she'd taken a knife that wasn't hers with her to track the sorceror. She said that she'd cut him on the ribs and shoulder. So I think the curse is caused by a knife, similar in size and shape to the one that Martha uses. I'm sure we could ask to see it.” He motioned vaguely, imitating what he’d do to call a servant to him. “She also said that the sorceror asked for details about why she'd been following him: who ordered it, to be precise. Which is why he must blame me for the curse."

"Arthur that's—"

He whipped around to face her.

"It makes perfect sense, Gwen! Out of everything, this is what makes it all fit together."

She held up her hands placatingly. "I didn't say it didn't, I just mean to say that you should sit back and wait for more information. Seek first to understand, Arthur. Just keep that in mind."

"But he's correct, Gwen," Gaius interjected. "And so are you. We need more information AND it makes sense with what we have. Sire, I think I may be able to find something now." He turned away and pulled three books the size of bricks off of one of the lower shelves. "Again, we need to ask for more information, but this is as good a start as anything."

"I'll go ask for it, then," Arthur said as he made his way to the door. "Keep on doing what you're doing and I'll be back within an hour."

—

He strode purposefully down the hallways to the dungeons. He made quick work of the walk but stopped abruptly at the door.

"I have a problem with how you just spilled the beans like that! We had the upper hand — he had no idea why you were reacting that way." It was Ana's voice, shrill and angry, but low enough to hide. When had she gotten in? 

"We never had an upper hand!" The sorceror snapped back indignantly. "Never ever! It might have been a bad idea to just answer everything he asked, but sitting in here and being silent is a worse one. We came here to get help. Do you not want it now? Because that's what not answering questions will get us."

"Fuck that! We're perfectly capable on our own."

"P- Perfectly capable— You lost your magic and I have a goddamn pain curse that keeps me from doing anything useful! We are not 'perfectly capable' at all!" There was a pause and what sounded like an angry huff before the sorceror continued in a quieter voice which Arthur strained to hear. "Neither of us are exactly at peak mental health, either. We can't expect ourselves to be at our best right now; that would be completely unreasonable. We spent a week pottering around in a cabin because we couldn't handle anything else at the time, and this entire trip was an act of desperation. So stop acting like we don't need help or that we're forbidden from asking for it."

Arthur opened the door slightly to hear the rest of the exchange. He'd barely been able to catch the last few sentences.

"Well," snapped Ana, and he could see how she crossed her arms and paced back and forth in front of the cell. "We practically ARE forbidden from asking for it. Are you forgetting who— more to the point, what— we are? We can't be totally honest here. We can't risk it."

"It's Arthur." The sorceror sounded sad, almost grieving. He hung his head. "And you want me to just, what—"

"I want you to talk to me before him! That's all."

"Right," he said guiltily, "sorry. I would've, but I hardly have enough control of the situation for that."

Ana knelt down at the door and reached her hand through the bars. She cupped his face and murmured something in the voice that Arthur used with his dogs. The voice that said in no uncertain terms that they were dear to his heart and that they had done nothing wrong. He closed the door, aware that he'd eavesdropped on an intimate conversation.

"Crap," Arthur muttered. He weighed his options. He could, of course, barge in and pretend that he hadn't heard a word. On the other hand, he could avoid talking to the two people— both of whom were, or had been, sorcerors— for as long as humanly possible. Arthur bit his lip, sighed, and wrenched the door open. "I have a question for you, sorceror."

Ana leapt backwards and disappeared into the shadows, and Arthur couldn't make her out no matter how he tried. The sorceror did nothing but looked up. All the fire that had burned behind his eyes had been doused by the past few hours. His eyes looked red, something that Arthur hadn't been able to see from the door.

"Yes?" he asked quietly. "What is it?"

"You mentioned a curse and I wanted to know more about it, like why you think I had something to do with it."

The sorceror's eyes flashed with gold, and a burst of muted babble exploded through Arthur’s ears and was silenced just as quickly. He must have blinked, because the sorceror was standing in an instant.

"I'll tell you want to know."

"Great," Arthur said, a bit surprised. "First, what caused it?"

The sorceror glared and opened his scarred fist dramatically. A blue, translucent knife appeared, shimmering, above his palm. "The Blade of Cahrathis."

"And what exactly happens to you when it acts?"

"I'm in unimaginable pain," the sorceror answered bluntly. "And there's nothing I can do about it."

“And–“ Arthur started to ask, but the sorceror cut him off.

“Why do you want to know? Why do you even care?”

Surprised, Arthur could do nothing but gape at the man, his mouth opening and closing wordlessly. He was fairly sure that he could hear some sort of amused snort from the corner of the dungeon, but ignored it in favor of thinking of his answer.

“According to you,” he replied slowly, “I am responsible for what’s happened to you. I’d like to know exactly what I’m guilty of.”

The sorceror scoffed bitterly. “So this is about assuaging your guilt. I should’ve known.”

Miffed, Arthur glared at the man. “Didn’t you come here for medical assistance? As near as I can tell, answering me is in your best interests. I may even be able to help you, if you let me.”

“What a load of bullcrap,” Ana interrupted, stepping out of her hiding space. “Why would you help him– help either of us– when you’ve made it quite clear where you stand about magic?”

“Ana...,” said the sorceror, almost sadly. “You heard him earlier. He’s repealing the ban.”

“And how long did he sit by while Uther murdered people for their births?! How long did he stay silent on this mysterious enlightenment?!” She thrusted a pointer finger towards Arthur and was nearly close enough to jab it into his chest. “He’s a filth-eating politician, just like everyone else in the court. He’s no better than Uther. He’ll say whatever to get himself what he wants, and you know it, my friend.” She swept her arm towards the sorceror, who stood limply inside his cell. “You know it! Your optimism will get you killed, and if you leave me alone I’ll kill you.”

Arthur could do nothing but gawk at the woman, so familiar in her wrath. Her righteous anger was so like Morgana that it almost hurt to look at her. He could easily imagine this plain peasant chained to the floor of a cell, screaming at Uther for his injustice.

“To both of you, I promise that I mean to repeal the ban on magic. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help more during my–“ He cut himself off and cleared his throat. “During Uther’s reign. But I am in charge now, and I am not,” he swallowed, steeling himself, “my father.”

Ana scoffed but didn’t say anything else.

“I think it would be best if you left now, your majesty,” the sorceror suggested softly. He barely met Arthur’s eyes. Arthur nodded to him and Ana, who swept into a mocking bow. He shot her a look and left the dungeon without another word.

—

“Beg your pardon, sire,” Gaius said, shaking his head like something was lodged in his ear. “The ‘Blade of Cahrathis’ is what you said, right?”

“Yes, Gaius, the Blade of Cahrathis. Ring any bells?”

“No.” Gaius shook his head again. “I’m sorry sire, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it, or if I have, it wasn’t memorable at all.”

Gwen raised her hand slightly. “Hey, you do realize we have books for more than just decoration, right? See, there’s thing called research, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. I mean, why would you, you’re only the court physician and the king of Camelot after all–“

“Alright,” Arthur interrupted irritably, “that’s enough.”

“Oh, did you get the point then? Because if you didn’t, I’m happy to go on.” She grinned almost maliciously at Arthur, a far cry from her timid reservation that he’d known in her years ago.

“No, really. We get it, Gwen.” He gave her a fond look and dropped a massive tome into her arms. “There you go then. Let’s get started, eh?”

The three of them sat down at the table, doing their best to maneuver around the clutter that seemed to have long ago set up permanent residence on the table. As they flipped pages, they had to avoid knocking over oddly shaped bottles with their elbows and when they stretched, they were sure to be wary of stray contraptions for unknown uses.

Time passed with almost incomprehensible speed, and soon it was too dark to read anymore. Gaius left to find something to light the candles with, promising that he’d be back quickly. As soon as he left the room, Gwen whipped around to look at Arthur.

“You and Gaius are planning a funeral?”

“What?” Arthur said, caught off guard.

“A funeral, for Merlin, without talking to anyone else!” She took a breath, but it didn’t seem to calm her down much. “Why is this the first I’m hearing of it, when according to Gaius it was brought up a week ago? Merlin had lots of friends here, Arthur, and you cannot just make all these decisions without the rest of us. You’re not the only person in Camelot who cares about him, you know.”

He swallowed. “I know that.”

Gwen held up a hand to keep him from continuing. “I’m not too mad at you, not really. I could be a hell of a lot angrier, actually. And the knights, especially Gwaine and Lance, will be furious. Maybe not furious that you didn’t tell them, but furious that you’ve given up and assumed he’s dead.”

“Gwenivere, it’s been eight months,” Arthur answered helplessly. “What, do the knights think he’ll miraculously show up and be all ‘surprise! Not dead’ after all this time? If I know Merlin at all, he wouldn’t stay away any longer than he had to.”

She shook her head. “I know. But having a funeral is a very final thing, and it, if nothing else, is how people will realize that you’ve lost faith in any possibility of his return. It’s just how things work, Arthur. You need to think about the bigger impact. I’ll back you up, of course, but just be aware.”

He put his head down on the table and hid his face with his arms. “I don’t want to give up on him, Gwen, but there’s nothing that could bring him back now, short of a miracle. And I reckon they fall under my father’s law.”

She gave a short bark of laughter and patted his shoulder. “Lay him to rest, Arthur. Merlin deserves it and so do you.”

Arthur didn’t lift his head from the table in that next moment, nor for the rest of the night. He was tired, after all. And a bit angry, though he didn’t know what at. And if he was crying, well, he had the armies and power to threaten any witnesses into silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, feel free to drop me some comments or kudos! I should probably never make estimates of when I'll post, because I end up inevitably posting either way earlier than I thought or way later. So I don't know when I'll post, but I'll definitely be hiding from my relatives next week so I should be at least somewhat productive.
> 
> My beta mentioned that this is all happening because Arthur missed a picnic, which I honestly forgot about and also is a funny thing to remember when you're reading. This is going so far to get back at someone for missing a picnic. Granted, other things happened too. But still. A missed picnic is the root of all evil. Remember that.
> 
> My beta, by the way, is @wolvaraash! She's on every social media site that I can think of off the top of my head and an amazing artist, so I totally recommend checking out her art. Do you have a tumblr? So does she. A facebook? Her too. Twitter? Check. Basically, go anywhere and you'll find her.


	18. Catching Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is a non-sequiter right now, but y’all should know that durum wheat is in mac and cheese

The traveler sighed and sank to the floor. Morgana rushed to the cell and tried to give him an awkward hug through the bars, which didn't work very well. She pulled back a bit and patted his shoulder instead.

"I wish you hadn't gone off on Arthur like that," Merlin said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "I know what you think of him, but he means a lot to me."

Morgana stared at him for a beat, then scoffed disbelievingly. He opened him mouth to say something else and she stood up angrily.

"I can't believe you," she hissed.

"Please—"

"Even if he doesn't know what he did to you and even if he really is repealing the ban, he still sat by idly while the sorcerors and warlocks of the world were murdered indiscriminately! Children, women, people who didn't even have magic and were just born differently!" The traveler resisted the urge to hit his head repeatedly against the bars. Barely.

"No, he didn't. You couldn't possibly have forgotten how he got the druid boy out, or how he spoke in the defense of Gwen's father." He folded his arms, glanced quickly to the door and cast a muffling spell so that they could speak without worrying that they'd be interrupted. "Arthur is a good person. More than that, he means the world to me. He’s consciously making a decision to be better, more just, and more generous. You're just ignoring his growth in favor of justifying your hatred of him and Camelot."

"Ugh!" Morgana groaned, throwing her arms up. "I'm not! But he, not to mention the entire Pendragon family, has blood on his hands that he can't erase just because he's nicer now. He doesn't deserve to be king!"

"You haven't been here for years, how would you know? Arthur has proven himself time and time again to me and to Camelot. Even when we'd only known each other for a few months, Arthur drank poison to save me and all of Camelot." The traveler stood up angrily. "I don't understand how you can forgive me but not Arthur! He's a better person than I am, but somehow he's the one you have a problem with. I don't get it!"

"You apologized!"

The traveler froze and then slumped over resignedly.

"Ana...," he sighed and looked away. "I'm a terrible person. I can't even begin to explain it all— but I'm awful. I’m horrible and I've killed people because I was angry and I just— I'm not a good person! Arthur is! I might have apologized but I still poisoned you, and I've still murdered people. Not even to save my own life. Just... I’m not a good person."

He hung his head.

Morgana fidgeted, looking guilty. She started to pace, and then stopped abruptly a ways away.

"You're not," she said. "A bad person, I mean. You aren't. For fuck's sake, I poisoned you too! I left you to be stung by serkets! Still no clue how you got out of that, by the way. In case you'd like to enlighten me later." She shuffled back to the traveler. "My friend, you cared for me, even when there was so much bad blood between the two of us that I was going to kill you the moment I found out. And Arthur never did that. We grew up together, sure, but he rarely, if ever, stood up to Uther for my sake. You found me in a shack in the woods and decided to spend a week taking care of me." A bit closer. "I cannot say enough about what that means to me, especially after everything I've done to you and you to me. So, my friend, listen and hear me when I say that I'm sorry, too. I so fucking sorry for making your life hell. For making Gwen's life hell. For fucking you guys over as much as I did." She took a few more steps, which left her directly in front of the traveler's cell. "It doesn't matter what you did in the past, but I'll listen if you want to tell me. It's hard to forgive people, at least for me, but you are worth forgiving and I want you to know that."

The traveler realized suddenly that his face was wet and tears were pouring down his cheeks. A sob choked out of his throat. His magic surged and the cell door disappeared, to which he paid no mind and pulled Morgana into a tight hug. She breathed a soft "oh" and promptly hugged him back, holding onto him like the rest of the world was falling away.

"You have to let go sometime," she whispered.

"No."

She laughed not unkindly, and slowly released him. He clung to her, his head on her shoulder and continued to cry unashamedly. Sighing, she patted him and continued to hold him.

"Please, my friend, it's late." She rubbed his back and he let go reluctantly. “Alright, then? You okay?”

He nodded and wiped his face with his sleeve. “Yeah.” He swallowed. “Where are you going? Have you found a place to sleep? I mean, now that the barn is basically uninhabitable and all.”

Morgana slipped around him into the cell and herself to finding a blanket, which, if it did in fact exist, seemed to be buried in straw. “Oh, I’ll crash with Gwen probably.”

“Ana, you can’t do that. Gwen doesn’t know who you are. No one does! And if they did they’d probably turn you over to Arthur.”

She turned back to the traveler and grinned. “Then I suppose it’s high time that I made some friends, don’t you think?”

He rolled his eyes. "I never knew you could do that."

Morgana gasped exaggeratedly, pretending to be offended. "I'll have you know that I can be very sociable, thank you very much. Just because you're a rude sorceror doesn't mean the rest of us have to be."

Finally, she pulled a blue wool blanket out of the straw pile and tossed it at the traveler.

"Thanks," he said. "You should really find somewhere to stay, though."

"Yeah," she agreed. She moved towards the exit like she was going to open the door, but then faltered when she realized that the door really wasn't there anymore. Turning back, she smiled. "Well, don't go anywhere."

"Uh, yeah," the traveler laughed sheepishly. "What do you think, should I move next door?"

"Nah, just see how long you can hang out in this cell without getting into trouble." She squeezed his arm and picked up her bag from the corner of the room. "And stay safe. Do you have the wards up?"

He shook his head. "No, they came down when Arthur came in. He startled me, and I guess I just... I don't know, Ana, I just took them down. I'll put them back up."

"Yeah, do that." She paused at the door to the dungeon. "Well, goodnight."

"Goodnight." His voice lowered to a whisper, “Morgana.”

True to his word, as soon as she left the traveler muttered spells to himself and waved his hand. The wards sprung up and he felt a sense of calm settle into his bones that he hadn't felt since arriving in Camelot. At last the wards were up without hurry and properly made. At last the warm feeling of his magic surrounded him and he felt that he could sleep restfully.

—

The traveler slept for longer than he had since Morgana had left, and woke up to Arthur stomping around the dungeon huffily. Percival stood near him, silent.

As soon as the traveler woke up, Arthur whipped around to face him. "Did you do this?!" he bit out, gesturing angrily at where the door had been.

Still bleary-eyed, the traveler sat up and yawned. "Not intentionally."

"Oh hell," Arthur groaned, dragging a hand through his hair and making it stand up on end. The traveler smiled at it and tried to bury any wistful thoughts of his. "Okay. Well, good news is that you won't be confined to this cell any longer. Sir Percival here will be your chaperone for the day."

"Lovely," the traveler said, throwing off the blanket and dusting himself off unsuccessfully. "What are the rules of this, precisely? Where can I go, how long can I be outside, that sort of thing."

"Ah, yes," Arthur replied in a much more dignified manner. "First, you must stay inside the city. You can go to the lower town, but not outside of the walls. Second, you must stay next to or within eyeshot of Sir Percival at all times. It's just after eight o'clock now, and you should be back by two. If you know someone, you may visit them, but know that Percival still has to be with you when you do. Additionally, use magic as little as possible while outside." Arthur put his hands on his hips and gestured for the traveler to get up. "That's it. Enjoy your six hours."

Cautiously, the traveler stood and left the cell, glancing at Arthur every couple of seconds. But the king did nothing to force him back into the cell, and in fact made a point of not touching the traveler at all. He left the dungeons without another word, leaving Percival and the traveler to twiddle their thumbs awkwardly.

"Shall we go, then?" asked the traveler, pointing his thumb towards the door.

Percival only nodded, and they wound their way out of the castle into the lower town.

A few of the townsfolk nodded or waved to the traveler, and a few others shied away, probably unsettled by his appearance. He touched his face self-consciously. He hadn't worried about it in a while and Morgana had never made him feel nervous about it, but now that there were so many eyes everywhere and every single one seemed to be trained on him. He could try to expand the glamour, but he was tired enough and he ran the risk of removing it completely if he went through with it. That was something he couldn't gamble.

“Sir Percival,” he began, thinking that it was probably best to be more respectful than he normally would be, “do you think that I could have my cloak back? It makes me awfully anxious not to have my face covered.”

Percival nodded and answered quietly, “Probably, but not right now.”

The traveler nodded back. That was just about the answer he had been expecting, so he found that it really didn’t bother him. Instead, he decided to find a bookshop. While expensive, he was sure that he could conjure something that was equal to the value of whatever books he wanted to haul back to his cell. But he’d never had cause to go to the bookshop in the lower town before as he’d had access to the library, so it took at least an hour of wandering around and refusing to mention his goal to Percival for him to find it at last.

It was a comparatively tiny building, especially next to two large storehouses of ore. Distantly, he could remember walking Gwen to them to gather materials for something. He smiled at the memory and ducked into the shop. He immediately had the sense that whoever ran it was trying to make an extraordinarily complicated and nefarious death trap, solely to satisfy some sort of perverse sense of humor. The shelves seemed to positively loom off the walls and every book seemed half an inch from killing someone through blunt force trauma. Of course, it was only the well-bound books that were higher up and in a perfect position to cause a gruesome, insidious accident. The books with looser, less stiff bindings slumped together at the bottom at the shelves. The shelves were positioned in an inexplicably maze-like way that only exacerbated the overwhelming sense of dread that the traveler felt bearing down on him.

As it happened, Percival could barely squeeze through the door, which was of a relatively standard size, albeit somewhat shrunk, much less between the shelves of death.

The traveler grimaced sympathetically back at him, before leaving him behind to wander the shop and stroke the spines of the studies and plays lovingly. Eventually, he settled down into a corner with a rather silly book which was only signed with three letters and a small, almost hidden scrawl of the symbol of copper. The book smelled like durum wheat and he would have whiled away the entire afternoon sniffing it if he hadn’t intended to read it. The story itself was irreverent and lighthearted, as if the author hadn’t taken themself too seriously at the time and really just wanted to enjoy themself, which the traveler rather appreciated.

After a few pages and brushing his fingers through the pages for a good five minutes, he snapped the book shut and strolled through the shop for more to collect. By the time he came back to the front of the shop where the counter was, the stack of books he carried went up to his chin. Percival ambled over to him curiously and picked the first book off the top. The traveler got red in the face, knowing that it was a romance and worrying that Percival would judge him for it. Surprisingly, Percival smiled.

“I love this book.”

“I– what? You do?”

“Yeah. I took it out of the library all the time when I first came here.”

The traveler tried unsuccessfully to reconcile his previous conceptions of Percival with this new information.

“That... Doesn’t really...” He trailed off, looking for the right word. “Match.”

Percival shrugged. “Not many people think so.” He put it back on top of the traveler’s pile. “Did you want to buy these?”

“Er, yeah,” he said and looked down sheepishly. “I can’t pay for them though–“

“–So put the books back–“

“–Without getting my purse out, and to do that I have to use magic.”

Percival snorted. “Of course,” he muttered, sounding annoyed. The traveler bit his lip.

“Sorry,” he said softly.

“No worries,” Percival replied, pulling a small purse from his belt. “Just pay me back later.”

Their voices had lowered to practically a whisper, so the exchanged gratitudes were inaudible in bustle of the shopkeeper finally emerging from wherever she'd been hiding before then. Her wild ginger hair refused to stay out of her face and flopped back into it whenever she pushed it out of the way. She looked like she'd run a long distance with her skirts and apron all askew as they were.

"Nice day out," she panted as she smoothed her clothes. "Did you find everything alright?"

"Oh, I just browsed," the traveler answered lightly. "But I certainly found books that'll keep me occupied for a long while."

"Wonderful to hear." Her voice wasn't the typical polite absence of most shopkeepers that the traveler met, so she was either new or was genuinely interested in what he had to say. Frankly, he fancied the former. As she counted the books and gauged their cost, he found himself noticing how effortlessly she moved the books, which had made the traveler grunt with strain as he hauled them through the shop. "And your total comes to twenty-one pounds."

Percival handed her the money, which she slipped under the clerk desk. She passed them a sack filled with the books, which the traveler slung over his shoulder. It was very uncomfortable and the spines kept digging into his back.

"Thank you for your business. Have a nice day!"

Not a minute after they stepped out onto the street, the bell tolled ten o’clock, and the traveler groaned. He'd barely known what to do with two hours, and he still had four ahead of him. Without the need for continuous movement of the last thirty-something weeks or the chores of the six years prior to that, he didn't quite know what to do with himself. He nearly laughed in hindsight at the thought of Arthur giving him time off. He wouldn't have any idea what to do with it.

But he wanted to see how far he could push Arthur before there were real consequences, so he declined Percival's offer to head back into the citadel. Instead, he wandered back into the areas he knew well. In this case, the area near the Rising Sun, which he knew mostly from dragging Gwaine out after a night of drinking. As he massed through a street just a few blocks away, a kid who couldn't have been more than ten jumped at the sight of him and rushed away. The traveler couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid; they were running in the direction that the traveler was.

As Percival and the traveler passed by the tavern, a shape sped towards them, too fast to be identified. It neared, and the traveler realized that it was Gwaine, looking disheveled and angry. He wasn’t in armor or his uniform, or even wearing the Pendragon colors. Without thinking, the traveler stepped toward his friend, expecting a hug.

So it was quite a shock when bare knuckles connected with his nose instead.

“You son of a bitch!” Gwaine spat as he yelled, and the spittle landed on the traveler’s face. “You son of a bitch, it’s your fault!”

Within moments, a crowd gathered, surrounding the three of them in an impromptu arena. The traveler was starting to get really tired of being vaguely accused that he probably had no hand in. Well, no hand in it the way everyone seemed to think that he did. He sighed, wiped the spit from his cheek, then took to holding his nose and trying to keep the blood from going everywhere.

“Why don’t we do this somewhere private?” he suggested quietly. He hoped Percival would back him up; Gwaine would never go along with him unless he had Percival’s support.

“You–“ hissed Gwaine, but Percival lay a hand on his elbow.

“It would be best not to do this in front of an audience,” Percival said, and the traveler sighed in relief. “Come on, Lettie has a back room that will do nicely.”

Lettie, the traveler knew, was the owner of the Rising Sun and had been since taking over from her older brother, who had lost a leg in the dragon attack. He hadn’t died from it, but he rarely went out, and rumor had it that he was changed in more ways than just his leg. The traveler wondered how it might’ve been possible that he wasn’t.

But it wasn’t polite to gossip or spread rumors, so he kept to his lane and followed Percival into the Rising Sun. Gwaine trailed behind the two of them as if trying to keep an eye on the traveler, but he didn’t seem to be able to see all that well and kept bumping into things.

Lettie took one look at the three of them and waved them to the back.

“Thanks,” Percival murmured to her as he passed. The traveler wondered if he’d meant to be discreet about it.

“Don’t mention it,” she muttered back. “Having a domestic, are you? Poor man in the middle you’ve got there. Does he know what he’s getting into?"

"No! No, Lettie, that's not it at all!” Percival groaned. “Gwaine’s just gearing up to punching his lights out, and I didn’t want it to happen in the middle of the street.”

The traveler barely contained a snort at this, but felt relieved that Percival was good enough friends with the barkeep to talk to her as confidently as he was.

“Yeah, hon, just go on back,” Lettie said amusedly. Then she turned to two young girls who had just sat down at her bar and didn’t look nearly old enough to be there. “Out, girls! How many times do I have to tell you, I don’t want the pair of you drinking until you’re at least 25. Buy my ale when it’s with your own, adult-earned money.”

The girls giggled and skipped out the door. The traveler shook his head, laughing quietly, and followed Percy and Gwaine into the back, despite Percival’s ominous expectation that he was about to be punched into next week. Percy closed the door to the small room behind the three of them, and the the traveler edged around a table towards a wall nervously as Gwaine stared him down, fists clenched.

“What is this about?” the traveler asked, trying to appeal to Gwaine’s, admittedly limited, reason.

“The goddamn fucking funeral, that’s what this is about!” Gwaine spat back. The traveler blanched.

“The– the what,” he stammered, suddenly feeling very weak in the knees. “A funeral,” he started to mutter. “A funeral. He’s– a funeral.”

He could barely wrap his head around the concept. The funeral was undoubtedly for him, given how he was missing and also the only person that was blamed for it, which all felt confusing and irritating. But why would Arthur even hold a funeral? The traveler couldn’t think of anyone else to start it, but why? A spark of irrational hope was rekindled and hurriedly squashed. All this was, all this funeral was, was yet another reason that he could never come back to Camelot as himself. His eyes hardened and darted around, looking for a way out.

“Yeah, that’s right,” snapped Gwaine, apparently oblivious to his internal turmoil. “A funeral. Because he’s been missing for so long. Because you—”

“Before you say another word, sir Gwaine, I had absolutely nothing to do with the vanishment of your friend. No one seems to believe me. But the truth is this: I lived in Camelot, left, and returned because I regretted my departure. I then saved the marketplace from burning down and was promptly executed. Those,” he paused sternly and glared, “are the facts.”

Gwaine spluttered a bit, settled on, “Fuck you,” and retreated to the corner opposite the traveler. Percival seemed uncertain about how to go about comforting him.

"Listen," the traveler said hesitantly. "I'm sorry for your loss. I just wish you wouldn't take it out on me."

Gwaine looked up at him, glaring murderously, but Percival rested a hand on his shoulder. At that, Gwaine's face crumbled and his shoulders sagged. To the traveler's chagrin, he started crying. The traveler hovered uncertainly, still as far away as possible, and wondered what he could possibly do to comfort Gwaine without making the whole situation a thousand times messier. His brain came up with absolutely nothing, and he cursed creatively at it.

"Could you," Gwaine began, and stopped quickly due to a bout of grief-born hiccups. "Could you use your magic to find Merlin?"

The traveler's heart hammered in his chest.

"I thought that he was dead," he replied, trying desperately to find a way out of the whole thing.

"That's what the princess thinks," Gwaine spat distastefully. "But we don't even have a body. Could you find Merlin or his body with your magic?"

"Um," he said articulately, "maybe?"

"Why not yes or no?" demanded Gwaine, brushing Percival off to stomp over to the traveler, who looked very much like he would have liked to be somewhere else.

"Because... It's not so simple," he answered, and groaned inwardly at how obnoxiously truthful he was being.

"What, PRECISELY," Gwaine snarled, "isn't so simple? Either you can or you can't. There's no reason for there to be any other answer to that."

"Pardon, but when exactly did you become an expert on magic?" he retorted harshly. He paused just long enough for Gwaine to scowl back at him, evidently with no answer to support his claim. "Exactly. Magic isn't that cut and dry, so beg your fucking pardon, but the answer to your question is 'maybe.' If he really is dead like the king says—"

"Which he isn't," interrupted Gwaine.

"—then no, I won't be able to find him. My magic can track someone's life force, but not their bodies. It's particularly useful in sticky situations like possession or body-swapping, but not much use in a hunt for a dead man." He tried not to cringe at talking about his own death so flippantly. But he really wasn't 'Merlin' anymore, not the way everyone knew him to be, and maybe he never had been. He'd lost whatever had defined him as Merlin, so Merlin, as far as the traveler was concerned, was dead. Irrevocably. Certainly. No question about it.

"But if he isn't dead," Gwaine said eagerly, "then you could find him?"

"Not if I don't have anything to go on. I don't know Merlin. I've never met him, or I didn't know him when I did, so I don't have anything to track him with. It's like with hounds; they need a scent to follow."

He was grasping at straws, but Gwaine didn't need to know that.

"Bullshit," said Gwaine piercingly. He was crying again. "That's just bullshit. Bullshit, bullshit, bull—"

"Gwaine, stop," commanded Percival quietly. "I understand why you're upset like this. But if this is all beyond the sorceror's ability, you can't hold that against him. How would you feel if someone demanded that you fly, and refused your explanations that you couldn't?"

"But it's for Merlin," Gwaine whispered, his voice cracking. "Merlin isn't— He's not allowed to get hurt. It just isn't— It isn't how this works."

The traveler stared, guilt gouging a hole into his chest. Surely it would live there soon, and he'd always feel it. A constant reminder of how he had ensured his friends' misery through every single decision he made since leaving the house. Something seemed to poke at his heart as if figuring out what it was, and then squeezed it viciously. He gasped, clutching his chest. It felt like someone was dragging his very soul out through his rib cage. And suddenly, it clicked as to what it was, because what else could it be. It was a product of the curse, and that was all.

His vision blurred, and his legs gave out. He managed not to make so much noise that the knights took notice, and awkwardly shifted around to lie stiffly on his back. He did his best to breathe properly and calmly but failed as he started to hyperventilate. Shaking, he touched two fingers to his neck to take his pulse, which was beating very erratically. He wasn't sure what else to do now and decided that simply hoping he didn't need to throw up would do.

He didn't know how long he lay there before he could feel Percival shaking him. It felt like it might have been forever.

"Breathe with me, okay? Breathe as I do. In," Percival made an exaggerated inhale, "and out." He exhaled loudly. "Alright? Again."

They did this several times before the traveler was breathing normally again. He grabbed at Percival in an effort to haul himself upwards, but fortunately, the knight just picked him up without leaving him to struggle.

"What the hell was that?" Gwaine demanded, but the sorceror knew from the slight tremor in his voice and the distance he was keeping that Gwaine was terrified.

"I don't know," Percival said, sounding shaken. "Maybe some kind of fit?"

"No," rasped the traveler, his voice hoarser than he'd expected. "It's not a fit." He leaned heavily against the wall.

"Well, what is it then?" Gwaine started to pull at his fingers nervously.

"It's a curse. And it hurts a lot. Is there anywhere I can sit down?"

Percival nodded and guided him to a chair that had been hiding in another dark corner of the room.

"Thank you sir." The knights seemed to close in on him, pressing him for more information. "It's a curse caused by an enchanted knife. Once it opens your skin, bam. You're cursed. Fun times." He pulled back his shirt collar to reveal the cut on his left shoulder. "There's another on my ribs, too. One of the king's agents came after me with that damned knife, and so she was the one to cut me. But the knife—" He cut himself off and looked sharply at the two knights, remembering his caution. "Why do you want to know this, anyway? Why should I tell you?"

"Because it makes me worry," answered Percival without a beat of hesitation.

"Because it makes me uneasy," Gwaine replied at the same time. They glanced at each other bemusedly.

The traveler weighed how angry Morgana might end up being with him and how much he wanted to confide in his old friends.

The knights won out, but by a slim margin.

"Alright.” He settled deeper into the chair, which wasn’t easy. It was very stiff. “The knife was enchanted, as I said. Or ‘is,’ really, but I think I lost it. Not sure really. Anyways, once it curses you, there are two ways out of it." Something niggled at the back of his brain, but he ignored it. "First, you can die. That'll stop the pain pretty certainly. Of course, I don't know how it affects you in the afterlife. Maybe it doesn't. Second, you can kill the person responsible, which will also end the curse." He wondered a bit why he was telling them all of this when they didn't even know who he was, but decided to once again ignore his misgivings in favor of his old friends.

"Who's responsible, in your case?" Percival asked.

"Ah, now that's where it gets a bit tricky. The king's agent cut me, but the spell has been changed over time. Something about how peasants were becoming alarmingly scarce with how much they were sent off to kill political rivals." The traveler rolled his shoulders. "So now, it doesn't matter who stabbed me. What matters is who wanted it to happen."

"Wait," Gwaine said. The traveler thought he sounded a bit incredulous, but he wasn't entirely sure. "Since the king's agent stabbed you..." Percival straightened, alarmed. "Arthur is responsible for your curse?!"

'Ah,' thought the traveler. 'This is why it's a bad idea to explain this in its entirety.'

Out loud, he said, "Well, er, yes."

Gwaine looked like he was going to punch him again, and did, and the traveler hopped out of the chair, startled.

"So you're here to kill the king, are you?" Surprisingly to no one but the traveler, Gwaine seemed a hell of a lot calmer about a plot to kill the king than he did with the funeral of Merlin.

"What? No!" The traveler hopped up on the table, scrambling to get away from Gwaine. "I'm trying to find a third option!" The blood from his nose, which he had previously been ignoring, had started to gush down his face and stain his shirt. "Believe me, if I thought dying would actually do anything for me, I would pursue that. But as I've been repeatedly informed that it's simply an exercise in futility, I'm stuck."

"Come to think of it, why aren't you trying to kill his majesty? It sounds like it would solve all your problems. There would be no one to hunt you down for being a sorceror, and the curse would be lifted." Gwaine folded his arms.

The traveler's eyes darted around the room, looking for an excuse as if it would be pinned to a wall. "I..."

"Spit it out," Gwaine said, and he was grinning like he'd cornered a something he'd been hunting.

"I thought it would be awfully difficult to kill him," the traveler said nervously. "And it seemed like too much effort."

Gwaine looked a bit like he'd just stepped in a road apple, but Percival seemed like he was piecing something together.

"You're depressed, aren't you," Percival said, sounding certain. 

“No shit,” the traveler grumbled. Percival didn’t pay any attention to how grumpy he sounded.

"You said that you'd have killed yourself if you thought it would help, but you didn't think it would work. And you chose not to do something that you thought would be too much work, even though it would probably make you feel better." The mountainous knight patted him on the shoulder. "I had another friend like you. You can get help, you know."

"From where?" snapped the traveler. "No one here would help me, that's certain. I'm a criminal by my very existence; no one would dare even associate with me. Ana is right. It's not explicit, but I will always be turned away from places that would aid me. Turned away or turned in to the throne. Turned in to be executed, more specifically."

The knights didn't have anything to say to that.

"Can I go back to my cell now? I think I've had enough of this arrangement."

Without another word, Percival escorted the traveler back into the castle, and down into the dungeons. The door still had yet to be replaced. As Percival left, Morgana appeared, seemingly out of thin air.

"I was told that you'd be out until two," she said, concerned.

"That was the plan," the traveler agreed.

"But here you are."

"Here I am."

"And you have a bloody nose."

"Yep."

"Dammit!" she exploded. "What the bleeding hell happened to you?!"

"I had a rather knuckle-filled encounter with Gwaine, and subsequently was an idiot," he replied, with a shell shocked, not-quite-calm air. He flicked his hand and his shirt was immediately free of blood. Another drop dripped onto it before he could blink. He sighed.

"Gwaine?" Morgana repeated. "I don't remember him."

"Oh, that's right. I don't think you ever met him. He's someone Arthur knighted when we—" He caught himself and his gaze flicked nervously at the door. "He's someone Arthur knighted when he went to recapture the citadel from Morgana."

Her eyes hardened. "Ah."

"Oh, don't be like that. He's a good man. I think you'd like him, actually. You have similar values, if nothing else."

"Mmm." She glanced around and stepped inside the cell. "Now, this next thing is entirely unrelated."

"Okay," the traveler said, mystified.

"I've heard that there's a funeral coming up." She leaned in close, and it occurred to him that she was worried about being overheard. "More specifically, it's your funeral. Do you have in mind how you're going to deal with this? Because I haven't got the faintest idea. Are we going to go? Will we just pretend it isn't happening?"

The traveler felt sick to his stomach.

"I guess I want to go," he said thickly. "It would be kind of rude not to, wouldn't it?"

Morgana opened her mouth to say something, but seemed to think better of it. "Okay."

"Do you know when it is, by the way? I only know that it's happening."

"Yeah." She stood up and handed the traveler the blanket. She crossed her arms and looked away, biting her lip. "Five days." A pause. "Five days, and then, for all intents and purposes, you're dead."

"So nothing will change." He huddled into it, gazing at some point in the distance.

"What?" She looked at him, startled.

He looked up, and there were years behind his eyes that he hadn't lived. "I've been dead for a while. The only difference is that everyone else will think so, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading this! I certainly enjoyed writing it, so I hope you liked it. Drop me a comment or some kudos if you did. I’ll be writing more soon, I promise! So keep your eyes peeled for that.
> 
> Durum wheat is, I discovered while writing this, in most pastas. So yeah, that book smells like unccoked pasta, basically. I smelled a book recently and that’s what it smelled like, so I tried to translate that into this story without being too anachronistic. Yeah. Catch me being stupid like that.
> 
> I guess the shopkeeper is unintentionally Molly Weasley?? I didn’t mean to, but she TOTALLY IS, or at the very least an ancestor (because I’m very much in the camp of Merlin and Harry Potter being in the same universe). She probably won’t crop up much more, she was just fun to put in there. I didn’t think of a name for her or anything, either, so that’s really a surefire way to tell that she won’t show up more. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> And... That’s all I have to say! I love hearing your suspicions and predictions, so by all means message me on my tumblr or comment about them!
> 
> EDIT: I can't believe I forgot to credit my beta! She's @wolvaraash and on most everything under the same name, from Tumblr to Facebook to Wattpad. She both writes and makes AMAZING art, which I absolutely adore, and so y'all should definitely check her out. Sorry WA! It completely slipped my mind when I was writing the A/N.


	19. The Longest Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Called so because this took so long to post and is also 10k words

Arthur paced back and forth behind the Round Table, trying to ignore how Gwaine and Percival stared at him. He stopped himself from tearing at his hair again, but just barely. He ran over what Percival had told him for the twenty-seventh time, and failed to reconcile what the sorceror apparently did in his spare time with what Arthur had seen of him already. He paused, and turned snappishly towards Percival.

"You said he went to a bookstore to get romance stories?"

At his knight's nod, Arthur grumbled and resumed stalking from wall to wall. He didn't know why he was so stuck on that, and pondered whether or not it was worth thinking over more. At worst, it was a red herring. Arthur couldn't imagine what other significance it might hold, so he moved on to replaying how Percival had described the sorceror's fit. The additional information was certainly helpful, and Arthur would send Percival along to Gaius later to repeat it all. But the fact that the sorceror didn't want to kill him was, well, surprising at best. So many people and creatures had come through Camelot in the last few years intending to depose or murder him, so hearing that a sorceror whom Arthur himself had ordered executed had no intention of repaying the favor was completely incongruous.

"One last time, Percival, he DIDN'T want to kill me, correct?"

"Yes, sire, but he admitted that was the only way to lift his curse." Percival looked apprehensive and he kept fidgeting.

"Hmm," Arthur rumbled. He tried to think of why the sorceror would have any aversion to Arthur's death, and came up with nothing except that he might be a druid. Arthur knew that the druids were pacifists, and he remembered that in one of his earlier reports of the sorceror he was described as wearing something of a drudic style, and yet...

The sorceror simply didn't come across as a druid. He lived in Camelot, for one, and he just seemed so much more like a normal person that Arthur would see on the streets. The sorceror seemed nothing but a person, who had a sorcerous talent completely by coincidence.

It was all very irritating.

“Summon the knights,” he snapped, waving a hand towards Gwaine. “I want them all back here in ten minutes. And tell the servants to call an emergency council meeting together in three hours. We’re going to have one hell of a day sorting all this out.”

“Sire, if I may,” said Percival hesitantly, “Sort all what out?”

“What to do with this blasted sorceror, for one,” Arthur replied. “We can’t kill him, and it seems like a waste of effort to confine him forcibly to his cell; he’s bound to sleep in there anyways. Also, we need to discuss the funeral, although that might be more private. Still, we have several orders of business which all need to be addressed, and I think that today will be hellishly hectic at best."

Percival looked a bit sick at this. Gwaine had already dashed out the door, and Arthur hoped he wouldn't dawdle anywhere along the way of his errands.

'I still can't believe your audacity, prat,' muttered the Merlin who was still inexplicably drifting around his brain. 'No, well, I can. But I can't believe how little faith you have in me. What, you can disappear on me and I have to run after you, and I'd be ridiculous for presuming your death, but I'm gone for just eight months and you're holding a funeral.'

Arthur refused to acknowledge the ghost lurking in his head. It was too close for comfort. Of all things, a lurking voice was the last that he needed right then. Even if he could hear its humor and imagine every inch of a conversation leading to it. Even if he could feel his eyes roll and his nose snort as he tried to keep himself from laughing. Even if he could feel the pressure in his chest as he longed to be completely truthful with someone he'd been friends with forever.

Aloud, he sighed.

Percival glanced up at him from the brass ring he was fidgeting with. "What is it, sire?"

"Just this whole mess, I suppose." He finally took a seat, and he hadn't realized just how tired his legs were until he'd sat down. "Nothing seems cut and dry. Not to mention that there's about a thousand things to sort out, from changing a law to organizing a funeral. But we've got all these people who refuse to be easy to figure out, and I've no idea how to spare enough time trying."

"Well, sire, they're people. No one's easy to figure out. If you think they are, you're probably completely wrong about them."

Arthur groaned. "Yeah."

"Also, sire, on a completely unrelated note, I don't think that five days is enough to plan a funeral." Percival's voice lowered until it was hardly more than a mumble. "It's awfully short notice."

"It doesn't feel right to put it off any longer," he replied woefully.

"Still, a few more days can't hurt." Percival's insistence was lost in brain Merlin's indignation.

'Oh, don't take your time declaring me dead or anything! Time is of the essence!'

Arthur rubbed his temples, wishing that today of all days he could be free of a headache. Unfortunately, someone in the sky, maybe the sorceror’s Goddess, absolutely hated him, so he was left with a headache and about fifty different problems that he all had to solve, because being king had absolutely no benefits when it came to administration. That, and he had Merlin’s ghost making a ruckus in his head. He groaned.

”Noted, Percival.” He tapped his fingers against the polished wood of the table, feeling as though he was forgetting something. Suddenly thinking of what was probably what he needed to do, he clicked his fingers. “Ah.” He met Percival’s questioning gaze. “Call in a servant, I want some papers from my room delivered here.”

“Yes, sire.”

A moment later, a page was scurrying back down the hallway with carefully specific instructions of which pile to retrieve. Elyan slipped in just as the page vanished.

“What’s all this about, sire?” he asked. To Arthur’s ears, he sounded worried. "Gwaine barely stopped to talk before sprinting off somewhere else. On past experiences, I’d guess that he’s trying to physically run away from his problems. Again. What trouble has he gotten into this time?”

“Nothing, Elyan. He’s just being odd, I suppose. But let’s wait for everyone else to get here before we get to the matter at hand; I don’t want to say it five different times.” Arthur leaned into the back of his chair, found that he couldn’t settle, and leaned back onto his forearms on the table. He ran over his agenda for the day and wished he had more hours to get everything done.

It wasn’t long before the entirety of the Round Table knights were present and the page had returned with a messy sheaf of papers. Clearing his throat, Arthur pushed himself to his feet.

“Thank you all for joining me on such short notice. I’m afraid this will not be an isolated incident over the next few days, so please come to me if you need a break or are too worn out to attend any meetings.” He lay the tips of his fingers on the topmost paper gingerly, as if they might disappear the moment he laid more pressure on it. “There are several matters which we must address, the first being no secret whatsoever, and the second being substantially less well-known. There’s also a third topic, which we will get to should time permit.”

“Oh, spit it out, Princess,” blurted Gwaine from his seat. He was bouncing his leg agitatedly, and wasn’t being very subtle about it. Percival lay his hand over Gwaine’s and murmured something to him, probably about shutting up.

“Our agenda for the day, as Gwaine has so rudely requested, is discussing the funeral for Merlin, then how exactly to deal with the sorceror, and lastly the issue of legalizing magic. We'll be dealing with this in exactly that order, and then we'll see if there are any other things that should be brought up. Am I clear?"

There was a chorus of assent from all around the table, some of it more grudging than others.

"Sire," Leon interrupted, sounding like this was something that he'd wanted to say ages ago, and that both circumstance and Arthur himself had prevented him from actually getting it out there. "Sire, a month ago you were convinced that Merlin was alive and had somehow gotten into one of your nightmares. Before we go ahead with both declaring him dead and having a funeral, can you please tell me why that theory has been disregarded? You believed it full-heartedly at the time. What changed for you?"

"Yeah," said Gwaine, catching on, "You said Merlin was present in your dreams, like it was a conversation. So why have you given up on him?"

"I—"

Suddenly, the knights were all clamoring to demand an answer, and Arthur fought the urge to clap his hands over his ears.

"Enough!" Arthur slammed his hands on the table and the room was abruptly forced into silence. Arthur tried to steady himself and sighed. "That's quite enough. I am well aware of what I said a month ago. If I recall correctly, it was also the dead of night and I hadn't slept well. My judgement was hardly at its best." The excuse, no, the lie, felt sour in his mouth. In that night, Arthur had been of the clearest mind he'd ever known himself to have, but to say that Merlin had managed to survive eight months on his own was ridiculous and outlandish. More than anything, it would hurt too much for Merlin to have been able to come back to Camelot and yet stayed away, and Arthur knew that Merlin would never have done that to him. "Also, Gaius has asked for a funeral, and I can hardly deny him that. He's not being unreasonable to say that he thinks Merlin is dead. He's also correct that Merlin is owed his last rites. It would be terribly disrespectful to leave Merlin's life without an end. I won't do that to him. He deserves so much better than we have been giving him and are able to give him, and now, if not anytime else, is the time to give it to him." The silence was still and thick, like a throat before sobbing. Arthur's voice became softer, and was glad that Merlin's ghost had kept quiet. "He deserves the world, and we failed him in life. I'll not do the same in his death."

There was a muffled sob from somewhere, and Arthur couldn't pinpoint exactly where it came from, but none of the knights were breaking down crying. Nevertheless, Lancelot wiped his eyes, Percival was carefully looking down, and Elyan had his head in his hands. Leon stared at Arthur with something that looked like a cousin of horror, twice removed. Gwaine, on the other hand, was leaning away from the table and looked distinctly green.

Arthur cleared his throat. "Now, we need to figure this out. We owe Merlin that."

"We owe him more than this," grumbled Gwaine, but he was quickly shushed by the other knights.

"Alright, let’s start with the bare necessities and expand from there." Leon took charge, and Arthur shot him a grateful look. "Geoffrey of Monmouth will be the officiant, unless anyone has any other suggestions.” 

When no one immediately came forward with an alternative, Leon continued confidently. “To fit everyone who’ll be coming, I think we should hold the ceremony in the town square. Now—”

“Wait,” Arthur said, holding up his hands. “Wait. Hang on. ‘Everyone who’ll be coming?’ How many people do you think will show up, exactly, that we need to hold the funeral in the town square of all places? That’s awfully large.”

“Arthur,” Lancelot interjected patiently, “the entire city of Camelot knew Merlin, and if they didn’t know him personally they know someone who did. This funeral has a 0% chance of being a private affair, and will likely go on for the entire day and well on into the night. Half the city will have something to say, and the other half will chime in anyways. If anything, the town square is too small.”

Arthur wondered how he’d missed that.

‘Well, it’s never too late to admit how self-absorbed you are,’ teased Merlin’s ghost.

He ignored it.

"Alright then, it'll be in the town square." He leaned into his hand. "We should send messengers out to announce it, in case people outside of Camelot would like to attend."

There was a momentary lull in the conversation, and someone coughed, which seemed to be some sort of quiet prodding.

"I have the feeling we're forgetting something," Lancelot said, frowning.

"Of course we are. We've only discussed two things. How could we possibly have managed to not forget something?" Gwaine rolled his eyes.

"I mean something immediately relevant to the point of attendance," replied Lancelot without heat. "Not just one random point in the hundreds we'll probably touch on in this meeting alone. That would be preposterous."

"Maybe his family?" Elyan suggested. "I can't remember Merlin mentioning any, but we could ask Gaius. Or my sister. One of the two is sure to know."

Arthur tried not to frown. Out of all the knights, he was fairly sure that only he knew of Merlin’s familial situation, and if Merlin hadn’t said anything, then he was hesitant to do so himself. He reached into his pocket and rubbed Merlin’s scarf between his fingers thoughtfully. Arthur swallowed back the lump in his throat and was about to jump in to say that he could ride to Merlin’s hometown to invite his family personally when Leon interjected.

“Actually, I think I recall him having a mother he was quite close to. She even came to Camelot once or twice. I can’t remember what for, but she did.”

“We can hardly leave her out of all of this,” Arthur agreed, smoothly shifting his plan. “Perhaps I’ll send Gwen to collect Merlin’s family.”

“What?!” squawked Elyan. “Just on her own? Arthur, what if–“

“Elyan, Gwen has enough skill with a sword to become a knight if she so wished. Not to mention she already knows Hunith and would be best for breaking the news to her.” Arthur swept his gaze over his knights, thinking of how they’d all sat together at a stone table all those years ago, Merlin and Gwen flanking him. He should have knighted the two of them right then and there, and was hard pressed to remember why he hadn’t. Well, he hadn’t known if Gwen had even wanted that, and Merlin seemed quite content to live out the remainder of his days glued to Arthur’s side. The more Arthur thought about, he realized that the notion simply hadn’t occurred to him. He wished it had, so that then Merlin could be given the grand funeral of a knight with all of the special speeches and acknowledgements that conferred. But that had never been Merlin’s style, even if he'd deserved it. Regardless, maybe Arthur could knight Merlin in death to honor what he’d done when he’d still walked the earth. He cleared his throat, suddenly aware that he’d been contemplatively silent for suspiciously long. “Anyways, Gwen is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and anyone she might end up dragging back with her.”

Elyan grumbled a bit, but made no further objections. Lancelot 'hmm'ed a bit and smiled.

"Speaking of," he said, trying to rearrange his face into something more serious without much success, "Shouldn't Gwenivere and Gaius be here too? They have just as much of a right, if not more, to a say in this discussion."

"Quite so," Arthur agreed. He went to poke his head out of the door and sent a page off to collect the other members of the original Round Table. "Let's keep this conversation on hold until they arrive."

After the assent of the other knights, he took his seat and wondered if it would be better to have Gaius and Gwen there or if the whole affair would quickly dissolve into strong minded disagreements. Gwen would surely have things to say on it all, and Gaius wasn't anymore likely to keep quiet on the funeral of his ward.

Arthur sighed, and spent the time until Gaius and Gwen showed up deliberating on how best to keep the peace between the everyone.

When at last they arrived, Gwen looked prepared to both run the entire conversation herself and run right over anyone who dared go against her plans for her best friend’s funeral. Her sleeves had been rolled up to her elbows and she’d tied her hair back. Arthur could easily imagine her with a sword at her hip and clad in armor, and resolved immediately to knight her if she ever wanted it. She’d be suited to it perfectly.

Gaius, comparatively, looked like he was barely holding himself together. He seemed to be clinging to his facade of a physician’s calm, and not doing a very good job of making it convincing. He was slumped over as if he’d given up on everything, even worse than when Arthur had discussed the funeral earlier. His eyes were vacant and tears were just peeking out of the lids.

The two of them took a seat, and the conversation resumed as soon as everyone had been caught up.

“Of course I’ll inform Hunith,” Gwen said, a preemptive challenge in her voice like she was daring the knights to tell her otherwise. “I could even leave in an hour. It’s about a day and a half ride in either direction to Ealdor, so I should probably leave as soon as possible.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Arthur concurred.

“And now that’s settled,” said Gwen, steamrolling over Arthur to further her own agenda, “we need to arrange something to commemorate Merlin’s service to Camelot. He’s one of the Round Table, as much as any of the knights. He helped retake Camelot from Morgana. He needs to be recognized for everything he’s done for the crown and everything he’s done just for the everyday people.” Lancelot stood and opened his mouth, probably to agree, but Gwen only raised her voice. “Did any of you know that he spent what little time he had outside of the castle helping out the townspeople? With anything at all. He watched their children, cooked meals for families who didn’t have the time or money for it, helped anyone at all with their chores. Merlin has done so much for Camelot, and to not mention this would have to be an absolute crime. I bet there’s even more, stuff that he’s never told anyone or that he hasn’t taken credit for, and we’ll never be able to thank him for that,” Gaius and Lancelot both stiffened, “which is a crying shame, but if we do nothing to thank him for what we know, so help me, I’ll–“

“Gwenivere,” Arthur interrupted, exasperated.

“Yes?” she snapped.

“We’ll be inviting people to tell stories about him. We won’t leave anything out unless truly no one knows about it.”

There was a tense pause until Gwen nodded stiffly. "That's acceptable." With that, the tension drained from the room like a sieve. The eight of them carried on with their planning, and slowly transitioned into the matter of the sorceror.

"He's not really doing anything wrong," Percival pointed out, not for the first time that day. "He seems to really hate hurting anyone or putting you in danger."

"He is strangely adverse to killing you, after all," said Gwaine, nodding seriously before dissolving into giggles. "Not that it says much for his sanity. Who wouldn't want to kill you? Apparently, a sorceror, of all people. Who knew!"

"We have no justification for keeping him incarcerated," Gaius said, his voice low. He'd said very little for the whole meeting and seemed reluctant to say even that.

"That's right," Gwen said excitedly, snapping her fingers. "Magic won't be illegal soon, so we can't keep him here. You have to release him to uphold your own laws." Her grin seemed to be on the verge of threatening, even now that she'd been appeased with Merlin's funeral being settled.

"I think he should go free without fear of consequences," Lancelot added. He'd been keeping his voice level, but Arthur hadn't missed how his hands shook.

"He deserves compensation." Everyone turned quickly to look at Elyan, who seemed so casual in his suggestion.

"Okay," Arthur said, drawing out the word and trying to regain control of the situation. "Explain your reasoning on that."

"When we first came across him, he was saving the marketplace from burning down. He endured physical injury, several days inside a cell or with restraints and very little medical attention, and was then sentenced to death." Gwen's brother shifted in his seat, as if it was slowly dawning on him how far out in left field his idea was. "He came back looking for medical attention, to which we responded by interrogating and imprisoning him again. We treated him unjustly, and he should be compensated for that."

"Do you have an idea of how to compensate him or is this just the general idea of it?" Leon leaned forward, clearly intrigued.

"Money, maybe? We could spend time trying to fix whatever's wrong with him, because I still have no idea but he definitely deserves it."

"Alright, let's come back to that later." Arthur fidgeted with the corner of a paper. "For now, let's simply assume that we'll be freeing the sorceror in the next few days and leave him to his own devices. When we do that, we need to alert the guard that he is not to be arrested and he's not under suspicion for anything. I don't him to be constantly escorted in and out of the castle for no reason; it's a total waste of energy. Whether he's guilty of anything to do with Merlin or not."

"And we'll have to remind him to be cautious about his use of magic," Gwen added. "Since the revision of the law isn't formally passed yet, he still needs to keep it out of sight unless we want more run-ins with him and the law. Additionally, does anyone know if he actually has a house? He doesn't seem to have anywhere to go, from what I've heard."

Arthur glanced at her in surprise, quite involuntarily, and she scoffed.

"Arthur, the gossip is wild. Everyone knows that he was escorted around the Lower Town, and there's about a hundred different stories about what happened after Gwaine punched him." She laughed. "They go from Gwaine almost killing him to inviting him in for a drink. Some go beyond that."

Percival's face reddened almost to the point that he could blend in with his cloak, and Gwaine sent him a cheeky grin, which only sent him further into his embarrassment camouflage.

"Well, I suppose we can house him somewhere in the castle. It's not like we haven't already been feeding him for the last week or something, so the only difference will be that he's somewhere else and he doesn't have to eat the crap food the kitchen normally sends down." Arthur wondered if Camelot was the sorceror's first steady source of food for a while. He certainly looked like it might be.

"Where, exactly, do you plan on putting him, Arthur?" asked Leon.

"On the second floor, in Gaius's tower. That room has been empty for goodness knows how long. We might as well put it to good use. And this way, the sorceror will be closer to where he can get the medical help he came here for." He paused, considering. "In fact, I think we should implement a program for the citizens without homes to live in as soon as we have the time to write it out. But that's beside the point."

"Well, I can't think of any reason not to," Lancelot said reasonably. "That is, both of those sound good, but I mean the more immediate plan."

"I agree." Gwen nodded, happy with the arrangement. "Why don't we go release him now? I'm sure he'd be thrilled to get out of the dungeons."

Following a round of assent, the eight of them streamed out of the door and made their way down to the dungeons after Gaius split off to return to his quarters, clearly having had enough of the whole ordeal. Someone cursed, but Arthur couldn't tell what about, and there was a loud, muffled bang from somewhere else in the castle like something large and metal had crashed to the floor. Arthur's first thought would have been Merlin, but Gwen thought the same thing and corrected herself aloud, forcing Arthur out of his hope.

When at last they all arrived in the dungeon, they were greeted with the sight of the sorceror snoring away inside his (still regrettably door-less) cell with Ana next to him, rubbing his shoulder comfortingly.

"He's sleeping," she snapped defensively before any of them had the chance to say anything. "What do you want?"

Arthur stepped away from the rest of his close council. "When he wakes up, tell him that he's free to go. We have a room prepared for him, just a few floors below the court physician. He shouldn't have any trouble getting the help you two came here for."

Ana looked confused at this, with her forehead creased in an oddly familiar way, as if she couldn't understand why Arthur was doing her or her friend a favor. "Thanks?"

"You're welcome. Have a pleasant afternoon."

He tried to hurry out of the room, but with so many other people, it made it rather difficult. But before they knew it, they had all escaped back to the Round Table room.

Except for Gwen, who seemed to have gotten lost somewhere along the way.

The knights all figured that she'd meander back to the Round Table room when it suited her, so they decided it was probably harmless to let her do whatever she was doing. Having put away their worries, Arthur passed around copies of the new legislature that he'd written and waited for their opinions.

"I like the bit about judging the outcome of a spell, rather than just the fact that it's magic," Lancelot said as soon as he came to the bottom. I think it's good to consider magic as a tool, so harm done by it is just deferred to the law that it would have broken if it had just been a hammer or something."

"Yes," Leon agreed. "It's a good idea to normalize it that way."

"I think there's one clause in there that should either be changed or removed." Elyan turned the paper around and pointed to a paragraph near the bottom. "This says that magic can't be a point on which someone is denied a job, but it also says that magic must be disclosed when applying for an apprenticeship or a job, and I think that's really counterproductive. Announcing that you're something different and feared in an interview is a surefire way to not get the job. And how would you enforce this? The best you could get is allowing people to win lawsuits based on their being let go from their jobs."

Arthur nodded, taking a quill pen and an ink bottle from a table. He scratched out the line about requiring disclosure of magic and scribbled something on the side about lawsuits.

"What about the fact that magic can do some things that we simply aren't able to accomplish without it?" Percival kept his eyes locked on the page as he spoke. "Obviously nothing should block magic users from getting jobs, but what about making jobs that are specially for them? Imagine if we had a squad of magicians that worked as a kind of... Sorcerous knights? We could keep so many more people safe."

"Not to mention," Gwaine said, butting in, "doing that would present magic as something fortunate and helpful, rather than as a curse or mental affliction."

"It would make it a virtue, rather than something to be feared," Percival elaborated.

"Alright," Arthur said, reaching for the pen again. "How do you propose we put that in the law, though? Just include something about how magician-focused jobs are legal and encouraged?"

"Yeah, I think that would work perfectly." Percival finally looked up from his copy of the paper, smiling tentatively.

"Speaking of revisions," said Leon, tapping the title, "you might want to change how you phrase this. It comes across as aggressive."

And so the next hour passed in much the same way. The bill underwent heavy editing until it was, at least according to the knights, substantially more inclusive and likely to pass through the council. Arthur collected the copies and shooed the knights out of the room, saying, "The council meeting is in an hour. I recommend you rest a bit before we all reconvene."

Arthur was left alone in his chair with an hour to kill. At a loss for anything else to do, he took out his revised copy of the bill started to read it over again.

'You should take your own advice,' said Merlin's ghost, and Arthur jumped, whipping around to look for the source of the voice. He sat back down, embarrassed, when he realized that he'd momentarily forgotten that his manservant was missing– no, dead. He'd forgotten that his manservant was dead. He had to get used to saying that.

"Oh, shut up," he muttered, but he found that he didn’t have the energy to be irritable. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, pillowing his arms behind his head. “What do you think? Of the bill, that is. Do you approve? Any smart remarks?”

‘I think it’s wonderful that you’re letting people be themselves, and your caution will be beneficial. Moreover, I think you should ask magic users what they think. Right now, this is from a purely non-magical perspective, and I think it would go over better if you asked for an opinion.’

Arthur snorted. He’d been thinking something along that very line. Of course Merlin’s ghost would only add on to it and lead it to the obvious conclusion; it was a part of his brain, not an independent mind. Nevertheless, he entertained the idea, wondering how he could convince the conveniently-available sorceror to talk to him, or if the sorceror even could. He’d seemed pretty wiped out when Arthur had gone down just an hour before. Maybe Ana would talk to him; Arthur remembered that in the conversation between Ana and the sorceror that he’d overheard, they’d mentioned her magic being stolen. Her point of view would probably be unique and therefore unquestioningly valuable.

As long as she would actually provide it.

Then again, he had an hour. And his only other options were going over the goddamn bill again or trying to catch a nap. Better to actually get something done than to do nothing.

So, stretching for much longer than was really necessary, Arthur stood up made his way to the dungeons, a copy of the bill in hand. As he rounded the corner into the first part of the dungeons, he barely avoided running into Gwen. She smoothed her hair a bit, not trying very hard to hide her smile.

“Hey, Arthur. What brings you down here?”

He held up his bill, and she noted the title. Her smile widened.

“And what about you? Have you really spent an hour down here? Why?” He spread his hands, perplexed.

She blushed a bit and looked away. “I was talking to Ana, the woman who’s friends with the sorceror. She, uh, she stayed with me last night. The two of them didn’t have a place to stay. Well, the sorceror does, obviously, because he’s been staying in the dungeons. But Ana just slept in here for a few days, without a bed or anything. She wasn’t too keen on asking for help or making herself known. She came to my house last night and it explained it all to me.”

“How the hell did she know where you lived?” At Gwen's sheepish look, he sighed exasperatedly. "Okay, that doesn't bode well. Which is it; was she knocking on random doors all night and yours was the only one that opened or did you invite her to stay before then?"

"Ah, neither. She, uh, well. Apparently she knew my father, years ago. She'd left not long after his execution and, well, she thought that we'd have something in common. So she dropped by." Gwen twisted her hands in her skirt. "And, you know, she's nice. She's actually really kind when she isn't talking about you or Uther. And she was quite worried, from what I saw, that her friend wouldn't do very well without her there."

"Huh," Arthur mumbled, trying to figure out how the bitterly defensive woman he'd met could be as gentle as Gwen described. But he supposed that it really had to do with circumstance, just as he dropped his air of regality around Merlin. "Well, I hope this improves her opinion of me."

Gwen shook her head, her mirthful smile turning exasperated. "Best of luck to you on that. She hates the Pendragon family. She didn't exactly rant and rave, but she's not happy to be back in Camelot. And she's certainly not happy to have you as a host. So knock yourself out, but don't get your hopes up."

"Noted. See you later, yeah?"

"Yeah. I should probably get on my way to Ealdor, if I want to get Hunith back in time for the funeral." She turned on her heel and whisked out of the dungeons. Arthur wondered idly if she really was hurried because she wanted to get to Hunith, or if she just wanted to hurry out of where they were.

He pushed on to the door and shouldered it open. It seemed to be blocked by something, which was abruptly removed so that he fell forwards clumsily. He was almost as bad as Merlin.

He was met instantly with raucous laughter.

"Oh, oh my. Oh my fucking god!" Ana was standing in front of the sorceror's open cell, clutching her sides like they were about to split apart. "That was fucking great! I can't— Just, holy shit. That just fucking made my day."

Arthur glanced towards the cell, irrationally hoping that the sorceror would be awake by now and that he would put a stop to Ana's behavior. Arthur himself could hardly do it; he had no authority over either of them. Ana would probably do the opposite of anything he said just to spite him or make his day harder. But the sorceror still leaned limply against the wall, evidently unconscious.

"I don't suppose you'll stop cackling at my misstep for a second so I can tell you why I came down here, will you?" This felt so familiar somehow, like this had all happened before and he was only just now remembering it.

"Mmm," she said in reply, like she was pretending to consider it. "I don't suppose I will, no."

And she started laughing even louder, clearly trying to make a point. Arthur frowned at her tiredly.

"Ana," groaned the sorceror from his spot on the ground. "Stop mocking the king. It doesn't do us any good."

"Oh, come on. It might not give us an advantage or anything, but it's funny as shit." Her face suddenly seemed all too sharp and her teeth all too pointed, like a wolf in the woods laughing at her prey's attempt to escape her. Arthur tried not to grimace.

"Ana...," chided the sorceror, doing his best to sit up. He didn't look very good, and as soon as he started to move, Ana rushed back into the cell and manhandled him into lying down again. Although Ana mostly obscured his view, Arthur was pretty sure that he could see the sorceror scowling at her.

"Oh, stop that," she snapped at him. "You're not nearly well enough to be moving around. That nap did you a world of good, but you need a few more worlds before you'll be up and running. I can't believe you."

Arthur stepped away from the door and strode towards the unlikely pair of them, telling himself very sternly that he was in no way concerned for the sorceror, and if he was, it was just a passing fancy. And yet, he still managed to blurt, "What happened? Are you alright?" before he clamped his mouth shut, embarrassed.

The sorceror looked at him strangely, like there was something in Arthur that he hadn’t seen before. “I– I’m fine. Just terribly exhausted. There’s been too much strain on my magic recently, and the– everything else has just piled up so it’s unbearable.” He shared a look with Ana and didn’t explain.

“You know,” Arthur said awkwardly, and he hated how he was acting like a kid his first time in love (now that wasn’t really the analogy he was looking for, he was pretty sure, but there wasn’t anything else coming to mind), “you have a room now. Like, a real one. We decided on it just a couple hours ago. It isn’t fair to you to have to sleep somewhere in which you have limited access to medical help that you need, no matter how much I dislike you.”

Ana glared at him. Arthur gave up on trying to figure out why. The sorceror grinned.

“Well, you can’t dislike me too much, if you’re giving me a real room.” He scrabbled for a hand hold on the wall and pulled himself up weakly, to which Ana scoffed, but supported him as he wobbled towards Arthur. “Where is it? It’s surely better than the dungeons, no matter how bad it is.”

Arthur explained it to him, as succinctly as possible. The sorceror might’ve lived in the castle a year ago, but it was totally possible that he’d never had cause to go that particular room. Arthur couldn’t remember the last time it’d been opened. But this way, the sorceror would be hidden out of sight where no one would think to look.

Arthur frowned briefly at that, trying to think of why it was important to hide the sorceror. They weren’t friends by any stretch, but he felt like it was vital. Inexplicably so.

"Ah!" said the sorceror, his face brightening. "That room. I know it. I had to clean it a couple times."

"I thought it hadn't been opened in years," Arthur replied, confused. 

"It's only opened by overzealous servants who have too much time on their hands," the sorceror answered cheerily. "And then they make the rest of us spend our free time cleaning it out. You've got some bootlickers among you, that's for sure."

George immediately sprang to mind.

"Yes, well. Someone needs to be efficient." Arthur crossed his arms awkwardly.

The sorceror laughed, and Ana rolled her eyes.

"There are plenty servants here who do their jobs perfectly competently without being obsequious." She adjust his arm over her shoulder. "Let's move you to your room now. Better to let you sleep there than here."

As if to prove her point, the sorceror yawned loudly. His eyes fluttered a bit, and his legs stopped holding him up before they had even left the dungeons. Arthur sighed and picked him up entirely, despite Ana's protests that she could take care of it herself.

"Look," he said to her impatiently, "if you can carry him from here to his room without letting him drag on the floor, by all means, carry him. But you were dragging him, and he might have gotten hurt. So I'm carrying him. Alright?"

She made a face that Arthur read as weighing her options sourly.

"Fine," she said, and they continued on their way to the sorceror's new room.

From there, they'd made only the occasional attempt at awkward conversation, mostly going through the halls in silence. At about the halfway point, Ana finally broke the silence.

"Why are you helping us at all? What's in it for you? Why do you care?"

Arthur didn't reply for a long time.

"I don't really know, I guess," he said at long last. "I was so angry with him when he first came to Camelot, and I treated him abysmally." Ana didn't look terribly shocked at this. "I suppose I'd like to make up for it. Or... I suppose I don't know. He just seems..."

'Like an echo,' said Merlin's ghost. 'Like an echo of me. You have two ghosts haunting you now; how are you doing?'

Arthur didn't answer, but gladly stole its words.

"Like an echo of a friend of mine."

Ana 'mmm'ed and didn't respond. She glanced at the sorceror with her forehead creased in the expression that he'd started to realize was her 'worried' expression, but he was still sound asleep. He didn't sound like he'd be waking up anytime soon.

"I know what you mean," she said quietly. "When the two of us first met, it was like we had years of history. And there was something about him that just constantly seemed to be trying to remind me. Part of it was how he screamed in his sleep– it's damn fortunate he hasn't been doing so lately– but he was also just so fucking familiar. Everything he did felt like a repeat of a memory. Everything he did for me was a reminder of the early years. I don't think I can explain it fully, not without possibly getting myself arrested, but knowing what I know, I'd hazard a guess that you feel the same about him."

He thought about how everything had gone since the sorceror had arrived in Camelot, and how Arthur had thought he knew something about Merlin because he insulted him similarly. The sorceror seemed tired of him, oddly enough, but that could be reasoned away by the fact that Arthur had, after all, literally ordered him to be executed.

Really, it could all be reasoned away.

His suspicions had no substance.

But no matter how he logically knew it to be ridiculous, the sorceror seemed like a perpetually depressed and exasperated Merlin. Like when Arthur had been bitten by the questing beast and Merlin had sounded like he was going to die. The sorceror had the unfortunate quality of seeming like a constantly morbid Merlin.

Something tickled at the back of his mind and Arthur cleared his throat nervously.

"Ah, Ana?"

"Yes?"

"Does your friend have any, er, memory problems?"

Ana stopped dead in the hall, and Arthur nearly didn't realize until he checked to see if the sorceror had gotten any paler and realized her feet weren't next to him.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Why did you ask that?" she replied flatly.

"Just... exploring a theory. Does he?"

"No," said Ana with a deadly finality. "He does not." Her hand twitched like she was going for a knife, but Arthur didn't see one anywhere on her person. It was probably habit. "He's exhausted and has had one of the shittiest lives I've ever known, and the worst part of it all is that his memory is crystal clear. I don't think he forgets anything except for household obligations."

"Oh."

They walked the rest of the way in silence, which this time was left untouched. Arthur fumbled trying to open the door, so Ana did it for him and guided him to the bed. Carefully, the two of them propped the sorceror up against the pillows and tucked him in.

"What happened to him? Why's he so tired?"

Ana sighed, and made one of the most impressive attempts at avoiding eye contact that Arthur had ever seen. She seemed to be making up her mind about something and clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth, like a quieter way of clearing her throat to announce that she was going to talk.

“It’s not entirely for me to say. But I think I can tell you this, mostly in the interest of his health: he’s been sustaining at least two major spells for a month now.” She fiddled with the quilts covering her friend and tucked them under the mattress tighter, as if she was worried he’d fall out in his sleep. Arthur gaped at the sorceror, whom he hadn’t seen do any magic more than a parlor trick since his return. “I can’t tell you what they are, but that plus the curse plus a general history of poor sleep, present circumstances excluded, has left him completely wiped out. Don’t ask me what to do about it– I don’t know. Just let him sleep, and everything should work out.”

She smoothed out everything on the bed and then adjusted it again, making it even tighter. Her friend was absolutely out cold and she didn’t appear to expect him to come to any time soon, if the way she was smothering him in pillows was any indication.

“Out of curiosity, Arthur,” she said as she lined the sorceror’s body with pillows that seemed to materialize out of thin air, and Arthur jumped at her use of his name, rather than the avoidance or mockery that seemed typical of her, “why aren’t you keeping him in the dungeons anymore?”

“Because it isn’t fair to keep him locked up when the one thing he could be incarcerated for isn’t illegal anymore, or won’t be very shortly.” He held out the copy of the bill. “This is why I came down here in the first place, actually. It’s to change the law on magic, and I wanted your opinion. Or, one of yours, but you’re the one awake.”

“I don’t have magic,” Ana replied bitterly.

“But didn’t you?”

She narrowed her eyes at him. Then, cautiously, “Yes.”

“So your opinion is invaluable to me. Please, tell me what you think of it. I want it to be as fair as possible, but I don’t exactly have a handy dandy sorceror to ask about it.”

For whatever reason, this made Ana snort with humor, but Arthur knew better by now than to pursue it. His questions would just end up sidestepped or twisted around on himself or answered with a riddle that answered absolutely nothing. It really wasn’t worth the trouble.

The bell tolled five o'clock, and Arthur swore.

"Okay, so actually, I can't stay. I have another meeting in half an hour. But I'll leave this with you so that you can tell me what you think next time we meet." He shoved the paper at her and was halfway to the door when she called out to him.

"You won't put guards out there, will you? Because that'd just be exchanging one prison for another."

"No, I won't. And only the Round Table knights know where he's been moved.  
Just make sure that whenever your friend goes out, he has someone with him. His health is in a terrible state." Having said everything he had a need to say, Arthur sprinted out of the guest room and darted up the hall.

—

The meeting did not go as planned.

For starters, everyone on his council had something to say, mostly about how they'd been feeling out of sorts for the last twelve days or so. Arthur, irritated, advised them to take their concerns to Gaius rather than to a council meeting.

Secondly, the duke had insisted on being present. Arthur had consented, but he didn't like the man lurking at the end of the table. There was only one person who was ever supposed to lurk at council meetings, and he was gone, perhaps forever.

Thirdly, the knights didn’t show up, leaving Arthur to defend his bill alone. He’d be having words with them when he next got the chance.

Dame Tane had something to report, and fortunately it was something other than the slight shift in her sleep schedule or how the pork chops she'd eaten just the other day tasted like wood chips.

"The army is advancing," she announced without preamble. "At my current knowledge, it could attack within the week if it continues to move at this pace."

There was a collective exaggerated gasp, which Arthur was sure was done for drama and no good reason.

Surprisingly, it was the duke who responded first.

"Where are they? How do you know?"

Arthur noticed curiously that his hands shook and his eyes were wide, but he kept his back ramrod straight. Fear, then. Terror. And he very much would rather not show it.

Interesting.

Elysande glanced at Arthur, as if waiting for permission. He nodded. They couldn't very well avoid the question, and the duke, without his duchy, was fairly harmless.

"It's moving from the Valley of Fallen Kings, your Grace." She dropped a report on the table, and it landed with a satisfying thump. "A day or two ride, but they have no horses; they're marching. As for how I know, I sent a scout to keep an eye on them with regular interaction with a courier."

"Well, what are we doing about this!" burst the one-eyed head of roads. "We're under threat, and we're just sitting here!"

Arthur cleared his throat and the room focused on him instantly.

"We are doing plenty, Lord Baven. Our training of guards and soldiers has increased in intensity and we've got new batches of guards and knights, as well as regular training for citizens who wish to know how better to defend themselves." He fixed Lord Baven with a fierce gaze and smiled as the head of roads shrunk beneath it. "Perhaps you could even attend one of those training sessions, seeing as you're so worried about the safety of the kingdom."

The entire council seemed to shift uncomfortably in unison like a sheepish school of fish, leaving Arthur and Elysande to smirk at each other knowingly.

The head of literature, a small woman who rarely seemed present at their meetings and instead daydreamed her way through work, looked up. In a dreamy voice, she asked "How many people are there?" before going back to drawing out what looked like a diagram of a forge.

"Eight to thirteen thousand, my lady. They march as a horde but split up when they sleep, which makes it more difficult to count them."

The head of literature seemed untroubled by this, while the rest of the table appeared to have been utterly drained of blood.

After a few moments of stunned silence, Arthur turned to Elysande casually.

"Anything else to report, then?"

"No, your majesty." With a smile, she sat down and collected the report in front of her into her bag.

"Well then," Arthur said, pleased to finally get onto what he had called the meeting for in the first place. "I do have something to bring to the attention of the council. I am repealing the ban on magic, and I have here in front of me," he tapped the version with edits that lay on the table, "a bill for that very purpose. I have gone over it once already for changes, and now bring it to you. This meeting, as I'm sure you're aware, is scheduled for three hours. We have this much time to edit and rewrite sections of it. We can, of course, schedule another meeting at another time, but I would prefer to have a final draft by the end of this. Understood?" The council nodded in unison. "Wonderful. Duke, I'm sorry, but you need to leave. I don't mind you sitting in on things, but this is about changing a law, and you aren't on my council."

The duke glared.

"Out," Arthur insisted.

The duke, thankfully, left.

"Now that we have the room as we like it, let's get on with it," said Arthur, pulling out his copy of the bill.

—

It was well into the evening when Arthur finally concluded his council meeting. There would probably have to be another later in the week, but for now he was free to spend his time as he pleased. Sighing, he strolled through the hallways into the servants quarters, intending to find Seta and get dinner.

Seta's chambers were small, and he would probably outgrow them the second he got an inch taller, but he insisted that he liked them, so Arthur made no attempt to dissuade him from his continued living there.

It was also at the end of a very long, unoccupied hallway, and Arthur had no idea why Seta like it so much. There seemed to be multiple strikes against it, not to mention the fact that it seemed to be more of an abandoned closet than anything else.

He knocked against the door.

"Who is it?" came Seta's muffled reply. Something was off about his voice. Maybe he was sick.

"It's Arthur. Do you want to get some dinner?"

Something that sounded suspiciously like sobs filtered through the wood, and Arthur knocked again before he knew what he was doing. It was much harder to figure out what to say, his words tripping over themselves like Merlin over his own feet.

“Seta, are you okay? I can hear you crying.” He got no response and stuck his hand in his pocket nervously, rubbing Merlin’s scarf between his fingers. “Do you, er, I mean, would you like me to come in, perhaps?”

“Yeah.”

It was almost too quiet for Arthur to hear. But he did, so he opened the door gently to a uncommonly small-looking Seta. His eyes were red and shiny, and tear tracks ran noticeably down his face. Arthur sat down next to him, and Seta leaned into him. He wasn’t crying as loudly now, probably because he was more aware of how much Arthur could hear him, but his bony frame still shook with sobs. He clung to Arthur’s shirt, getting snot all over it, but Arthur did nothing to push him away, his cleanliness momentarily forgotten. He rubbed a hand up and down Seta's back, hoping to calm him down, but he didn't have much success.

"What's wrong, Seta? What's going on?"

Seta shook his head and pulled Arthur into a tight hug, as if he was afraid of letting go.

"I'm scared," he whispered.

"Of what?" It had to be horrifying for Seta to be this upset about it.

"That you might not like me, or that I'll do something wrong, or that the dark will reach out and grab me all of the sudden, or that he'll..." Seta's voice continued but was much too quiet to hear.

"Seta," Arthur said gently, trying to find a way to calm him down. Comforting people had never been Arthur's strong suit, and yet here he was, with little else to do. "Seta, what are you talking about? I– Where to start?” He raked his hand through his hair. “I don’t know what could possibly lead you to think that I dislike you. I hope you know that your fears are unfounded. And I,” Arthur stuttered a bit, remembering how suspicious he’d been of people his age when he was younger. It was hardly the same thing, but the fact was that he could relate. So, “promise that I’m not faking that you mean a lot to me. Can you tell me why you think I might not?”

Seta pulled away and tucked himself into the corner of his bed. He tugged at his sleeve and said something under his breath.

“What was that?”

He wouldn’t meet Arthur’s eyes.

“I haven’t been... entirely honest with you,” he muttered resignedly, as if this was a last resort. Like he was backed into a corner– ha.

Arthur struggled to think what Seta could possibly be thinking of. “Oh?”

Seta squeezed his eyes shut and said very quickly, “Myfamilyisn’tdead.”

“Er,” said Arthur intelligently, “what?”

Seta took a few panicked breaths. “My family isn’t dead. So to speak. But I can’t, that is to say, they won’t want me back, for a, uh, number of reasons that are all, uh, really... They aren’t dead, but I’m dead to them.”

Arthur tried to untangle the knotted string of words, but gave up and focused on the last sentence, because that, at least, he could understand. “They think you’re dead?”

“No.” The answer was immediate and final. “That’s not what I mean at all. I’m dead to them because they hate me. My mum, specifically. She– I mean, I know I told you about how she sent me here because it was a health concern stay. But that wasn’t true. Which you probably figured. But she hates who I am, so I wasn’t welcome with her any more.”

“I’m sorry,” said Arthur, not really knowing what else to say. “Can you tell me why?”

Seta completely stilled, like a rabbit caught off guard. He rubbed his blanket between his hands, as if hoping he could throw it over his head and not see Arthur when he took it off.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to. But this seems to be really bothering you, and I’d like to help, if you’ll let me.”

“It’s okay,” said Seta. “It... has to do with how much I go see Gaius.” Arthur leaned forward. He’d been wondering about it for ages. “He helps me with being, well, me.” Seta barked out a laugh. “This is so goddamn hard to explain!”

“Language,” chastised Arthur, but Seta just rolled his eyes, his characteristic humor seemingly restored, however temporarily.

“Sure, pop,” he said, without seeming to realize what he’d said. He sobered quickly. “I see Gaius a lot because he makes me potions, after a fashion. For right now, I need them pretty frequently, but he says that when I’m older and sure of everything that I’ll only need to take one and then it’s all set. One and done.”

“What does he make you potions for, though?” Arthur pressed, starting to get impatient.

“I... Arthur, my mom threw me out because I’m a boy, and that wasn’t what she thought I was.” Seta seemed years older in that moment, like his worries had aged him into someone more Arthur’s age. He pushed himself out of his corner a bit. “And Gaius’s potions, um, help me look the way I want to.”

Arthur stared for a moment, wrapping his head around everything. He noticed how Seta seemed to be trying not to bite his hand, as he had all those months ago when Arthur had first met him.

Arthur opened his arms, and Seta, looking very relieved indeed, threw himself into them.

“Seta,” Arthur said, his voice muffled by being covered by Seta’s shoulder, “You’re this close to being my son. I more than like you, I love you, and I don’t care how you were born, nothing is going to change that. I only wish that you’d told me how stressed and worried you were earlier. Please tell me how I can help."

"Right now, I think just having this hug will help a lot."

Arthur smiled. "Sure then, kiddo. Anytime."

—

Seta fell asleep a few minutes after the bell tolled ten o'clock at night, and Arthur carefully tucked him into bed not long after that. There was barely enough light to see by in Seta's tiny room, the entirety of it slipping in unobtrusively through one of the smallest windows that Arthur had ever seen. But Arthur found the door all the same (there were only so many places to check, after all) and stole into the hall, closing the door behind him softly.

Finding his hunger gone and no exhausted fog on his mind, Arthur decided that he might as well wander into town, since no one else would be around to talk to.

As he meandered through the streets, content to listen to his boots clicking against the cobblestones, he caught a glimpse of someone slinking through the market. His forehead wrinkled, and he followed them.

Though it wasn’t easy to see in the low light, Arthur could tell that the person, he presumed they were a man, had thinning brown hair and an air of sliminess to them, like they left a trail of suspicious business deals behind them. Or maybe it was in how they moved or maybe it was just Arthur’s gut instinct, but whoever it was was suspicious as all hell.

He edged closer, and saw what the man was carrying: some notched wooden disks, yard after yard of string, and some odd plants that Arthur had never seen before.

The man glanced over his shoulder, probably worried about being followed, and the only reason Arthur didn’t gasp was that he’d had several decades of learning to hide his reactions to things.

“The duke,” he muttered.

The duke whirled about, as if he knew he was being followed, and Arthur decided that about then would be the perfect time to go back to his room and get some sleep. He didn’t think he’d be able to really process it without a full night’s rest.

It was only in his bed, alone with his thoughts once again as the events of the day, all rapid-fire and overwhelming, finally caught up with him. Two council meetings, whatever was going on with the sorceror, Seta’s revelation, and now the duke of Dore doing something terribly shady in the middle of the night. Arthur thought of how he’d dealt with Merlin’s ghost this time around, and how even his awareness of the unreality of it all did nothing to shush it. Oh, how he wished it did.

But maybe, given its silence when he talked to Seta, focusing on the present and looking to the future was the way to finally put Merlin’s ghost to rest.

He could always try, at any rate, and there was always tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah! That's that. Tell me what you liked, what your theories are, what made you scream or want to throw your phone (I'm just presuming that's what you're reading on) across the room, or anything at all! I love hearing from you guys.
> 
> So a lot happened this chapter, and I'm trying to set up everything I need to be set up before the climax, so the next few chapters will be chock full of things happening. I've got an outline and everything, so that'll be up in probably about how long it took for this to be posted? Honestly, I have no idea how long it'll take, but my goal of ending this by the end of the year is no longer feasible. I'll be in Germany for 10 days, from December 25 to January 4, and will have unreliable internet access, so writing might be difficult. But I'll get something done, I promise.
> 
> My beta is, as per the usual, the wonderful @WolvaraAsh. She is totally invaluable in improving my writing and making it have the impact I want, and I can't thank her enough. You can find her on basically every social media, and she both writes and draws. So check her out, if you like, and stay tuned!


	20. The Longest Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> mwa ha ha HA longest fuckin chapter in my life jfc

The traveler and Morgana sat in silence for a few minutes following his macabre statement. It wasn't precisely uncomfortable, per se, but Morgana was certainly cycling through some curious facial expressions as she seemed to process it.

Finally, she jolted as if at last coming back to consciousness, and yanked the traveler up by his armpits. "Right," she said curtly. "We're not sitting here any longer. Let's go do something. Something illegal. Let's get your heart rate up. Live a little, dead boy."

The traveler looked at her strangely.

"What?" he asked, sounding out of touch with everything. "'Dead boy?' Really?"

"Hey," she replied, grinning like a madwoman, "you’re the ridiculous person who claimed to be dead already."

"Shut up," he groaned. "It was a different time."

"It was hardly five minutes ago, and if you think I'm ever letting this go, well." Her eyes glinted. "I most certainly will not."

He laughed at that, and it felt good. It felt like one of Gaius' special, verging on magical, teas; the ones that swept away pain, restored peace of mind, and generally lent a warm fuzzy feeling to one’s stomach — perfect for rejuvenating the happiness that had been torn from him over the past eight months. He fumbled for Morgana's hand and squeezed it, softening her toothy grin.

"You're a sappy dork," she teased fondly.

"And you aren't?"

"Touché."

The conversation stagnated and the two of them stilled as well, as if waiting for words to propel them back into action. Then guards a couple of doors away started howling that the dice were rigged against him, and bittersweet memories ripped the traveler from his frozen state.

The traveler cleared his throat and said, "So, you were saying about doing something illegal?"

"Oh, yeah." Morgana smoothed her hair back a bit. "I didn't really have any ideas per se, but I'd definitely be open to engaging in breaking the law. Especially if it's the law of Camelot." She winked.

“Of course.” He rolled his eyes. “How about we do something a couple steps down from murder, which I know is in your top three go-to crimes, and instead do something still scary because of how illegal it is, but significantly less scary, and less illegal. Like listening in on a council session? There’s undoubtedly something fun to hear, even if most of it is crop reports. And what’s really fun is the thrill of hearing something you’re not supposed to.”

Morgana grinned and punched him in the shoulder. “That sounds like a plan! Let’s get a bit of adrenaline in our system and break some, admittedly minor, laws!”

“Alrighty then.” He smiled tentatively, trying not to show how on edge he was. “How exactly are we going about this?”

“Oh come on,” she grinned. “You’ve got glamours in place already. Just boost the potency on them and we can sneak in!”

He scrubbed his face with his hands tiredly. “‘Gana. That’s not how this works. Our glamours are completely different. Well, not completely. But they’re different, completely or not. And I don’t think I can ‘power it up’ or anything. I mean… maybe? But not. Definitely not.”

Morgana furrowed her brow and crossed her arms, her shoulders almost touching her ears. “Different how?”

“Well, mine is actually less powerful. I just wanted to be less noticeable. I wanted to stand out less. And it’s kind of weak.” The traveler rubbed his arm. “Yours has a lot more magic to back it up. The glamour on you does more than remove noticeable quirks and goes so far as to basically make you completely unnoticeable until you draw attention to yourself.” He paused. “I guess this sounds pretty similar, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.”

“But it’s not. I don’t know how to explain it exactly, but mine hides who I am, and yours hides you. Completely. It hides all of you and even hides your presence. Mine doesn’t.” He fidgeted, hoping that Morgana would understand.

She nodded pensively. “Okay. But could you expand that? Expand my glamour to cover you too?”

He shrugged. “Maybe? I’ve never done anything like that before. I don’t know how long I’d be able to hold it.”

“Well, it’ll be learning experience. How ‘bout it?” She took his hand, trying to calm him, but he pulled it out of her grip. “I won’t let anything bad happen to you, you know that. But for your own health, you can’t sit in this cell moping until the end of time. And I won’t let you. So get up, try it, and let’s go.”

This tugged a smile onto his face. “Fine, then. Let’s go.”

—

A few minutes of careful edging around corners and hiding in alcoves with adrenaline-crazed grins on their faces later, the traveler and Morgana found themselves at the door to Arthur’s council. Unfortunately, the door was closed, and the traveler was stretched too thin as it was to cast a spell to let them slip through the wall. If he’d had a week of sleep and released the glamours, sure then. Of course. With the given restrictions… There was significantly less certainty about his ability to do anything beyond a handful of childish parlor tricks.

So the two of them lurked by the doorway, hoping someone would open it at one point or another.

As if summoned, which he unintentionally might have been, Gwaine barreled through the doors and sprinted down the hallway in the opposite direction as if the hounds of hell were on his heels. Without missing a beat, Morgana darted towards the door and yanked her friend through it a mere moment before it thudded shut. They immediately flattened against the nearest wall and slid around the room together like a shadow, taking in the room silently. The traveler wasn’t quite sure where his conclusions ended and Morgana’s began, given how wound together their minds seemed. The expansion of the glamour had done more, it seemed, than simply share Morgana’s concealment. It lent an odd, otherworldly link to the two of them, allowing them to share things without speaking. But since magic, at least the traveler’s, tended to do a bit more than it was really supposed to, this did not come as much of a surprise.

Arthur, the traveler noticed with a distant twinge of concern, was leaning into his palm, rubbing at his temples like his head hurt. His eyes were closed and moved restlessly beneath his eyelids as if he was dreaming, but the forced steadiness of his breath spoke vehemently to the contrary. Percival was fidgeting with a ring that the traveler had never seen before, and he quickly put it away when the king sighed.

“What is it, sire?” Percival asked, and the traveler felt more than heard Morgana shift uneasily beside him. She made no sudden movements, clearly aware of the boundaries of her glamour which hid the two of them, but her wondering was impossible to ignore.

‘Who is he? I’ve only seen him in passing.’

In response, the traveler pushed his memories of Percival to her, willing her to understand how the knight had come into Arthur’s service and his confidence in hardly a year. It was difficult to outwardly articulate how the retaking of Camelot had bound the original Round Table together, especially since Morgana hadn’t ever really had the same kind of experience, but perhaps the emotions tied to the traveler’s memories would convey it all the same. He bit back tears that had sprung into his eyes, citing his need for distance and anonymity. Even his heart didn’t believe him at this point. What he needed was Arthur, and no distance or anonymity would get him that.

Morgana squeezed his hand, no doubt feeling everything ripping itself apart beneath his surface. He’d never been very subtle. Knowing that she knew him so completely now, he felt a blush creep up his cheek.

In trying to sort everything out, he missed Arthur’s response, but Morgana filled him in easily.

Changing a law?

It made sense that it would be the law surrounding magic, but why Arthur might do that utterly eluded any reason. The traveler hadn’t influenced him at all as of late, or if he had, it was only negative with the baggage of his supposed ‘kidnapping’ dragging Arthur’s opinion of magic from the lowest it could conceivably go into the abyss itself.

Clawing himself out of his thoughts, the traveler just caught his friends “It doesn't feel right to put it off any longer,” and resolved to hang on more tightly to the conversation at hand so as not to lose track of the topic again. He had the sudden notion that this was very much like making a New Year’s resolution, and he would fail it within the next half hour.

A few more minutes flashed by and the Round Table knights appeared one by one, the traveler introducing them to Morgana as they filed in. Then the page Arthur had sent to pick up some papers from his room slipped in, dropped his package off, and slipped back out again, and the meeting was in full swing in an instant. Arthur pulled himself up to his full height, shining like the sun with his own light, and the traveler knew exactly why he had once said to himself that he was in love.

Not that he was, or could ever tell anyone. The ‘love,’ however loosely defined, of a servant for their superiors was expected, almost required, and this was no different. It wasn’t allowed to be.

“Thank you all for joining me on such short notice,” boomed Arthur, his voice rolling like a thunderstorm across an open grave. “I’m afraid this will not be an isolated incident over the next few days, so please come to me if you need a break or are too worn out to attend any meetings.” The traveler didn’t miss how Gwaine stiffened at this, or Leon’s perpetually attentive gaze sharpened, surprised. They hadn’t known about Arthur’s plans, then. This wasn’t just for show. Arthur, to his credit, either didn’t realize or had simply decided it wasn’t worth his words to placate people he already knew would follow him to the ends of the earth after a week without food, rest, or drink. Instead, he tapped his papers gently, and every pair of eyes in the room zeroed in on his fingers. “There are several matters which we must address, the first being no secret whatsoever, and the second being substantially less well-known. There’s also a third topic, which we will get to should time permit.”

The traveler leaned forward, curious. What could Arthur possibly be talking about? And why wouldn’t he just—

“Spit it out, Princess!”

Well, that.

Now that the traveler had his focus on Gwaine, he realized just how bouncy the knight was. His leg in particular was doing a funny dance that didn’t seem all that appropriate for the Round Table. Percival seemed to agree, if the way he tried to calm Gwaine down was any indication.

As Arthur went over his plan for the meeting, the traveler scanned the room for the reactions of his old friends. They all seemed somewhat skeptical or something, or at the very least reluctant. The traveler digested the itinerary himself and almost laughed when he realized that most of the meeting was about him. How flattering.

Leon interrupted, which was uncharacteristic of him, and his entire point seemed odd. Arthur had been convinced that Merlin — and there was that disorienting detachment from what was supposed to be himself again; it felt like he kept zooming in and out of himself, perpetually in a motion-sickness inducing limbo — had gotten into his nightmares? His nightmares, of all places? How would he have even gotten there in the first place? And why would he have wanted to?

Gwaine added on irritatedly, and the word “conversation” launched the traveler back into the nightmare of falling from Arthur’s window onto the pyre, screaming for Arthur as he was swallowed by the flames. The expressions that had flashed through Arthur’s face when he first met the traveler’s eyes, all those months ago.

Grief.

Hope.

Abject despair.

Joy beyond measure.

‘Merlin, where on earth have you been?’

Oh, shit.

Whether accidentally or by subconscious design, the traveler had slipped into his sovereign’s dreams and they’d shared countless nights of death and horror together. Which meant that Arthur had seen his glamour melting off that night in the dungeons, which was why he’d come charging down to see. Arthur had wanted to know if his dream was representative of reality. Instead, he’d been greeted by the face of a sorceror who he assumed was responsible for the disappearance of his… 

What was he to Arthur? Or rather, what had he been?

They weren’t friends, at least Arthur had never said so. But their relationship transcended the expectations of boundaries between servant and master. George exemplified how servants ought to behave, and the traveler had never achieved such distance.

Until now, at any rate.

With the loud objections of the knights serving as a background, the traveler whispered to Morgana with as much subtlety as he could muster.

“I don’t know if I can stand being here much longer.”

She looked at him sympathetically. “If you want to leave, I’ll start making the arrangements for our departure as soon as we leave the room. We don’t have any resources, but who can resist such a pretty face?” She smiled, almost teasingly.

“Thanks,” he murmured, smiling back.

“Of course. Can I recommend staying with druids, if we stay with anyone? They’ll be best equipped to break your curse.”

He nodded, and a sort of desperate eagerness crept into his face. “And to sever my connection to his majesty over there.”

Morgana looked confused. “What? What connection? Why do you want to sever it?”

“Arth–” He choked on the name and paused for a second, trying to regain his composure. “The king and I have some sort of magical connection. I don’t know how, but it must have something to do with the prophecy of the druids. That I’m Emrys and he,” the traveler nodded to Arthur, “is the fucking Once and Future King, here to unite Albion and let magic back into the land.” He took a deep breath. “I don’t want anything to do with that. Or at least I don’t want anything that forces me to see him every day. I don’t think my mind will survive that. I don’t think my heart will survive that. And this connection is probably what ties our dreams together.”

“You’ve been dreaming about him?” Her tone, while concerned, had an edge of humor to it. He didn’t catch on to it.

“You know I have.”

“And so that dream a month ago, when you woke up screaming?” She gripped his shoulder worriedly.

“From what we just heard, it sounds like he was sharing it.” Morgana’s fingers dug tighter into his shoulders. “He was on the other end as I was burning on the pyre. He was yelling for me just like I was screaming for him. He watched me fall from his window into the courtyard.”

“Is that what happened? You never told me.” Just as the traveler nodded, Arthur slammed his hands down on the Round Table, making the two invisible eavesdroppers jump. They’d nearly forgot he was there.

“Enough!” The knights stopped shouting immediately, as if under a spell. “That's quite enough. I am well aware of what I said a month ago. If I recall correctly, it was also the dead of night and I hadn't slept well. My judgement was hardly at its best.” Arthur’s tone sounded odd, like he was trying to convince himself more than the knights. Like he knew what he was saying wasn’t true. “Also, Gaius has asked for a funeral, and I can hardly deny him that. He's not being unreasonable to say that he thinks Merlin is dead. He's also correct that Merlin is owed his last rites. It would be terribly disrespectful to leave Merlin's life without an end. I won't do that to him. He deserves so much better than we have been giving him and are able to give him, and now, if not anytime else, is the time to give it to him.”

Gaius had done that? Asked for a funeral? Not that it was shockingly early, but to have driven even Gaius to despair seemed cruel. And it would only be crueler to come back now, a shade of what he had been, after eight months of an assumed death. It would be kinder to stay dead, to live his shattered life away from those who would insist that he was more than a shell of what they’d known. It wouldn’t be fair to them to pretend.

His face felt hot.

Arthur’s voice was so low when he spoke once more that the traveler had to strain to hear him.

“He deserves the world, and we failed him in life. I'll not do the same in his death.”

It hit him suddenly why his face was hot. Tears, which had previously only pricked at the edges of his vision, poured down his face, salty and impossible to see through. A sob escaped him, and Morgana covered his mouth, evidently terrified of discovery. The traveler could feel her heart beat at a terrified gallop. Arthur looked around the room, probably confused. But no, he was just looking at his knights’ faces. None of them had broken down, but that wasn’t to say that there were no tears in their eyes. Now that he was looking for them, the traveler saw that Gwaine looked ready to vomit, Leon was horrified, Percival wouldn’t meet anyone’s eyes, Elyan was probably thinking to much about everything he and the knights had done wrong, and Lancelot sat staring into the distance, like he couldn’t believe what was happening.

The Round Table moved on to the details of the funeral and the traveler let his mind wander. He thought of Brust, eight months in the past, and how the druid spoke more of the safety of the magic he had than his own.

‘We wouldn't want magic incarnate getting himself drowned, now would we?’

Not ‘we wouldn’t want you drowning’ or ‘we’d rather you didn’t die.’ Brust had said, very specifically too, “magic incarnate.” He valued what the traveler was over who he was.

And why shouldn’t he? It was Emrys who had done everything that the traveler had once been proud of, not M– not the person he hid as.

The old name that his used-to-be friends knew him as had nothing attached to it but an old village with nothing left to it but a few pigs and sheep. Emrys was a dragonlord and magic incarnate, and a thousand other things no one had explained. So who in their right mind would choose a farm boy over the most powerful warlock to walk the earth? What kind of fool would one have to be?

Strangely, he realized that his eyes were dry, his tears apparently evaporated. Knowing that he was no longer in danger of putting himself at Morgana at risk, he tapped her hand which still covered his mouth, and she removed it carefully. They nodded to each other, all the communication they needed. There was a kind of peace in knowing that he was a different person, or perhaps had never been what Camelot had thought he was in the first place. He didn’t have to cling to anonymity or deny what he was now, and that was a freedom he had never enjoyed before. So not only grief had come from his decision to leave so many months ago.

But what was he doing back in Camelot if not to reappear?

It took him longer than it should’ve to remember that he’d returned for assistance in lifting his curse. He swore colorfully at himself in his head and carefully cleared it until he felt removed enough to turn his attention back to the meeting at hand.

And of course they were getting into his family.

Strangely, Arthur looked uncomfortable. The knights seemed oblivious to it, but the traveler saw it in the way his jaw clenched and shifted. His hand was in his pocket, probably to hide his fidgeting. He only did that when he was really worried about something. This must either be worse than being surrounded on all sides by an immortal army or the straw that broke the camel’s back. Or, in the worst case scenario, it could be both.

“Perhaps I’ll send Gwen to collect Merlin’s family,” said Arthur, instantly melting the traveler’s heart with grateful relief.

“What?! Just on her own?” Elyan’s voice was comically high. “Arthur, what if–”

With stunning confidence that completely contradicted his fidgeting and the way he held his shoulders, Arthur replied, “Elyan, Gwen has enough skill with a sword to become a knight if she so wished. Not to mention she already knows Hunith and would be best for breaking the news to her.” Then he looked down at the table, almost sadly. But no, that didn’t quite fit. It was something else, something not quite as somber. The knights started to stare at him with a mix of curiosity and concern. Arthur appeared to suddenly become totally aware of this and cleared his throat. “Anyways, Gwen is perfectly capable of taking care of herself and anyone she might end up dragging back with her.” 

Another short pause. 

“Speaking of, shouldn't Gwenivere and Gaius be here too?” Lancelot was trying very hard not to smile, and not doing a very good job of it. “They have just as much of a right, if not more, to a say in this discussion.”

Gaius and Gwen were summoned, and the traveler was trembling with anticipation of seeing his first friend and his… 

His thoughts seemed to burn up then, leaving him only with the word “again” as he gripped Morgana’s wrist nervously. She’d been lounging against the wall, bored, but his touch brought her back to life with panic flaring in her eyes. She lay a hand on his back, but he still shook uncontrollably. He turned to her and she held him confusedly, a steady cliff to his turbulent tide.

The physician and the servant appeared, and the traveler felt as though he was cast adrift, his connections to these people torn in two, leaving him as a separate entity, no strings attached.

‘Wasn’t this what you wanted?’ demanded some terrible part of him, the part that was probably responsible for the severance.

‘No,’ he thought back desolately. ‘No, it most certainly is not. This emptiness is so much worse.’

But he needed it, whether he wanted it or not, and he’d just have to get used to it. He needed as much distance as he could buy, so the level of priority held by comfort had fallen somewhat.

There was something surrounding Gwen, and another, altogether wildly different something surrounding Gaius. It was as if, now that he had escaped the cobwebs of emotional connection to them, he could see them with that much more clarity. The druids had mentioned something similar during his few visits with them, and Mordred must have been spectacular at it with the way he looked at people as if seeing through them like glass.

The aura, for that was the least inaccurate word for whatever pulsed like an exposed heart around Gwen, was fiery and strong, like tempered steel. Gwen walked with a power in her steps that whispered ‘military,’ and the traveler immediately understood what Arthur had said about knighting Gwen. She had a presence that she’d quietly gained over the past seven years, bringing her to the moment she exploded into a Round Table meeting with an indomitable opinion and no room for argument.

Gaius, on the other hand, drooped like he was weighed down with lead and moved with pointless effort. The aura that wove around him trapped him in the blue gray of a storm cloud. While Gwen could barely be contained to her chair, Gaius slumped into it like he was relieved not to be responsible for holding himself up anymore.

Arthur saw it too, the way he confidants walked. The traveler saw the sympathy and fear balanced on his face, and watched the table carefully as the discussion was recapped. Gwen’s aura cracked a bit, letting the traveler catch a glimpse of the fear and grief caught under the red-hot metal of her ferocity. She welded it shut hastily, leaving a few holes behind as she demanded a proper ceremony for her lost friend.

Interesting how she did that.

Suddenly, as Arthur reassured her that anything they could thank the absent corpse for, they would, her anger drained away, leaving only her sadness. She reminded him of Morgana now, and it made his heart ache, like he’d lost something in her rage.

From there, they stopped talking about the funeral and the accompanying awkwardness of it all and instead moved on to the sorceror. More accurately, they moved on to what to do with the man standing by the wall, not more than a few meters from any of them. Talk about irony.

It was nice that most of the knights seemed to vouch for him, explaining that he had no interest in hurting anyone, least of all Arthur, and Elyan’s suggestion of compensation was particularly kind.

Of course, it was only a few minutes before Gwen said the damning words “Why don't we go release him now? I'm sure he'd be thrilled to get out of the dungeons,” and the traveler and Morgana had no time at all to get to the dungeons without setting off the alarm. That was the consequence of eavesdropping, the traveler supposed, but his mouth was inclined to say something else, which namely was “Oh, shit.”

Arthur looked around at that, but the traveler whisked him and Morgana into his cell via his favorite transport spell and wasn’t conscious long enough to see if he was successful.

—

He woke up only briefly, some indeterminate time later, and heard voices.

He groaned softly and tried to sit up.

“No, no,” said Morgana, gentle and uncompromising. “Don’t move much, okay?”

“Oh my god,” said another voice, and it only took a second for the traveler to recognize it. “Is he okay?”

“Gwen?” he croaked. His eyes opened just a crack, just enough to see her shocked expression. Why was it such a shock that he would say her name?

“Shh, shh-shh-shh, go back to sleep. Sleep for a long while. You need it.” Morgana had lowered her voice to a melodic order which the traveler was inclined to follow, but just before he could:

“Do I know you?”

And with Gwen’s voice echoing in his ear, the traveler fell back into peaceful unconsciousness.

—

When he woke again, it was to Morgana cackling at Arthur, who was staring at her with exhausted bags under his eyes. She must have done something to embarrass or harass him. Ah, siblings.

He found that he couldn’t really move all that much; his limbs felt like someone had stolen all the muscles out of them and replaced them with air. So he stayed where he was leaned against the wall and was satisfied simply with managing to turn his head towards the two ridiculous people. “Ana, stop mocking the king.” Oh good, he had their attention. Small victories. “It doesn’t do us any good.”

“Oh, come on,” Morgana whined, grinning with the poorly disguised intention of scaring the living daylights out of Arthur, just for the hell of it. “It might not give us an advantage or anything, but it's funny as shit.”

“Ana…” he groused. He tried to push himself up, but didn’t manage anything more than a heroically useless struggle. At his movement, Morgana darted back inside the cell and forced him to lie back down. The traveler glared at her impressively, but that didn’t do anything to stop her. He tried instead to bat her hands away, but she only glared back in reply without dignifying his feeble protests with anything in the way of physical restraint.

“Oh, stop that. You're not nearly well enough to be moving around.” The idea of being that unwell shut him up quickly. He hadn’t used that much magic… had he? He’d been careless. Which wasn’t to say that he’d done anything he hadn’t intended to do, but still. He’d been phenomenally stupid to try and teleport while maintaining two separate glamours. “That nap did you a world of good, but you need a few more worlds before you'll be up and running. I can't believe you.“

A jab of unhappiness burst through his chest as he noticed Arthur walking away, probably in an effort to escape the awkwardness of Morgana being motherly. The traitorous part of him that still clung to their shared history reached out to Arthur’s mind, whispering pleas of turning around, of asking after him. And of everything that could have happened next, Arthur did turn around, a vexed crease in his forehead and his lips pursed.

“What happened?” The words seemed to burst out of Arthur’s mouth without his permission. “Are you alright?”

The traveler gaped. He knew he hadn’t done anything magical to influence Arthur; he was too exhausted to do anything of the sort. But even without any magic to interfere with Arthur’s decisions, the king had still turned back to ask if he was alright. The king of Camelot cared for a known sorceror. It could have been a dream come true if the circumstances were just a bit different.

“I– I’m fine.” If drained of all energy constituted ‘fine.’ “Just terribly exhausted. There’s been too much strain on my magic recently, and the–” A near thing that he avoided saying ‘the glamours that hide me from you,’ but he managed it all the same. He swallowed his confession and recovered clumsily. “Everything else has just piled up so it’s unbearable.”

Morgana shot him a look that said all too clearly ‘You’re being careless, you absolute dolt,’ and he answered with a look of his own: ‘Don’t rub it in my face, you inconsiderate jerk. This is Arthur Pendragon. You know he’s my Achilles’ Heel.’

Arthur looked back and forth at the two of them, confusion scrawled all over his face. It would have been amusing if the fact that he was taking an interest in the two of them didn’t spell out ‘danger’ in big, red letters. The traveler had made too many mistakes since returning to Camelot. He couldn’t maintain the distance he’d coveted in the past eight months now that he was near reminders of everything he’d left behind all day long. He’d lost the face and then the name of the person they had come to know, but he couldn’t leave them behind, not without help or intervention.

“You know, you have a room now.” Arthur spoke hesitantly, almost nervously. “Like, a real one. We decided on it just a couple hours ago. It isn’t fair to you to have to sleep somewhere in which you have limited access to medical help that you need, no matter how much I dislike you.”

Unbidden, a grin spread across the traveler’s face. Even with a different face and a total lack of a name, Arthur spoke to him like he’d used to.

Almost.

The intent was undeniably different, no matter how the traveler might have liked to pretend.

Undeterred, he fired back with, “Well, you can’t dislike me too much, if you’re giving me a real room. Where is it? It’s surely better than the dungeons, no matter how bad it is,” and raked his hand down the wall, hoping his fingers would catch on a ledge and offer him a way to stand up. Despite his muscles remaining mysteriously absent, he managed to get his feet under him, and Morgana supported him after that, although she snorted disapprovingly at his efforts. With her help, the traveler made his way shakily towards Arthur as if drawn by a magnet.

As Arthur explained where it was (on the second floor in Gaius’ tower) he stared, enraptured. The light that shimmered through the window of the dungeon made Arthur’s hair glow and his eyes shimmer. When he frowned, ever so slightly, like the small crest over a grave, the traveler struggled to realize what it meant for a few seconds. The tiny expression of— what is it? Sadness? Confusion?— seemed so counter to the lambent existence Arthur seemed to be living through that the traveler just couldn’t comprehend it.

But the words that Arthur was saying finally broke through the traveler’s awe, and a few scattered memories of forced chores from a particularly obsequious servant.

He managed to stumble through a few more sentences before his exhaustion caught up with him. He collapsed into someone’s arms, but not Morgana’s. No, the arms he fell into were far more muscular than Morgana’s, and far more familiar.

Arthur.

—

He was pinned. Something, maybe someone, had strapped him down and trapped him.

His magic surged to the surface and tore at whatever held him down. It flew off him without trouble; some idiot had thought they could keep him down with only a rope.

“Stop!” Ha! As if. “My friend, don’t do that. You’re safe. I know you’re tired, and probably scared because of something or another, but you need to calm down. You’re just a little disoriented, I’m sure.”

His eyes focused on Morgana, her face concerned.

“You’re in the room Arthur gave you. Try not to ruin it.”

And it was true, as far as he could tell. The room was as he remembered it, though the sheets of the bed were drenched in sweat. Had his magical exhaustion made him sick, too, or had something else gone wrong? His brain felt too foggy to think of what it could possibly be.

“What’s—”

“Wrong with you?” finished Morgana. “You already know, don’t you? Your magic is stretched to its limit. The glamours, plus teleportation, plus the shields up around you every night, plus anything else you’ve been doing without my knowledge… It’s all added up. As for just now… In my unprofessional opinion, I think you just panicked because the covers were too tight. You’re a fucking mess, you know that?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “Damn right, I know. And seeing how I've ended up, I don't think I can keep up the glamours for much longer.”

“Well in that case, something else you ought to know is that his highness getting uncomfortably close.” The traveler scowled. “Fine, ‘his majesty.’ Does it really matter? Anyways, while we were dragging you over here—”

“You dragged me?!”

“—he told me you were like an echo of someone. An echo probably of yourself. And no, we didn’t drag you. Figure of speech, you silly man. Anyways, he was asking questions. All the wrong ones, thankfully, but ones that said more than enough. He asked if you had memory problems. The best guess? He thinks you’re exactly who you were, but you’ve forgotten him and everyone else. With the way you acted when Gwen came by, he might feel proven correct. That is, if she tells him anything.” She paused and leaned back into the chair at the side of the bed. For a moment, she only stared at him with an expression he couldn’t read. She looked as though she might say something, but made no move to voice it. With a sigh, she stood up and put a hand on the traveler’s forehead. “You’re running a fever. Not a high one, but still. Don’t get out of bed.”

“G-go back a second,” he stuttered. “Gwen came by?”

Morgana fell back into the chair, even more inscrutable than before. “You don’t remember then?”

He shook his head.

“You talked to her then. You recognized her.” He only shook his head again. “Well, you did. Did you forget to pretend to be total strangers or something? Bloody sloppy of you.”

“I don’t need a reminder.”

“No, of course not.”

There was a beat of silence in which the traveler only stared at the wall opposite him and Morgana stared at her hands.

“If you didn’t drag me, what did you do?”

Morgana’s head moved so quickly the traveler worried she might have snapped it.

“The king– Arthur– he carried you.” She almost smirked. “The whole way, he carried you in his arms. He may not know you consciously, but there’s something inside his mind, lying half-buried, that knows you. You should have seen the way he looked at you.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t tease.”

“I’m not! I’m serious.” She smiled, but not with the biting humor she otherwise would’ve shown. “I wouldn’t tell you something like that if it wasn’t true. Not about Arthur. I know that he’s important to you, mystical prophesied connection or no. Out of everything, I wouldn’t lie about that. And you shouldn't lie to him either.”

The air seemed to slow at that, as if coming so close to the truth would make time itself stop.

“Yes, but…”

The ellipses hung in the air, almost visible.

Morgana echoed his dwindling sentence, now with a question at its end, which finally drove him to answer.

“But imagine how that will make everything worse.” He struggled to sit up, glaring off Morgana’s efforts to force him to sit back down. “If I engage in anything closely resembling honesty, it could destroy him. Not just his trust in me, but his ability to do anything about me or magic or anything else.”

“That may be, but if you do anything more than sit up, so help me, I will steal something potent as all fucking hell from Gaius and leave you to sleep. I swear to the Triple Goddess, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll put your head back down on that double-damned pillow and get some rest.” She folded her arms and managed a stern scowl.

In what was hardly a vicious retaliation, he swung his legs out of bed. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I do what’s good for me.”

“I’ve caught on to that, yeah.”

True to her word, Morgana surged out of the chair to press him back into bed, but the traveler, even weakened as he was, was quicker. That, or he simply had gravity on his side. Regardless, he slid off the bed onto the floor after his legs failed him.

“Shit,” he grumbled, immobile on the ground.

“I did tell you,” said Morgana. “I do have good reasons for telling you not to move.”

“Well, I still need to. I can’t just sit here. Everything exciting is happening outside those doors.”

“Yes, and you’re in no shape for excitement. Why won’t you listen to me? I’m trying to keep you safe!”

He rolled onto his stomach and pushed himself up just enough to pull himself towards the door on his elbows. “And I appreciate that, I really do. But I need to know what’s going on. When we were eavesdropping, Arthur said he had another thing to discuss and we never got to hear it because we panicked and then I lost consciousness. I need to know what it was that they were talking about. And I want to know a lot of other things too, like how Gwen’s doing and what’s happening with the knights. I can’t learn those things from here.”

“Do you mean the room or the floor?”

“You’re just like your brother,” he said, grinning. “And either one. Will you help me up, please?”

Morgana scoffed. “Don’t insult me.” She came around to the other side of the bed, where the traveler lay, and pulled him up by his armpits as well as he could. She couldn’t get him to standing, though. “Well, don’t say I didn’t try. Can you try again?”

Grunting, the traveler pulled his feet under him and, with Morgana’s help, straightened up fully.

“Ta-da!”

She rolled her eyes fondly. “Oh boy. Come on, if you want to walk around and be stupid like that, well. I don’t approve, but I don’t want you to get hurt, either. So I’ll help you, even if getting out of bed when you’re hardly stable enough to stand up on your own is a terrible idea." She looped her arm around his waist and his arm around her shoulders. "Where do you want to go, idiot?"

"Out."

"I hate you."

"Love you too."

The two of them struggled out into the hallway, picking their way sluggishly through the castle they'd both once known intimately. They came across surprisingly few servants until they had put considerable distance between them and the traveler's room. Perhaps they'd been told not to go near it.

They rounded a corner, looking carefully where they put their feet. Well, Morgana looked where she was putting her feet and then would check where she was putting the traveler’s feet.

The traveler watched where she put his feet with mild interest.

Neither of them were looking where they were going.

So then they ran into someone else, who was rounding the corner just as they were doing, except that they were not on their side of hallway and therefore did not have the right of way.

Morgana, rubbing her head, demanded, “Who the fuck do you think you are? Stick to your side of the hallway, jackass.”

The traveler looked up from where he had landed on the floor, and where he would spend the next few hours, if his past struggle with standing up was anything to go on. As soon as he caught sight of the man who had thrown him to the ground, he made an involuntary ‘ew’ face and made no move to correct or hide it.

It was wasn’t that the man was ugly (although a convincing case could be made that he was), or that he was wearing some sort of distasteful accessory which would cause mothers to cover the eyes of their children and their children to peek at it anyway. No, he just seemed to be the kind of person who left a trail of ‘ew’ faces wherever he went. He just seemed to be some kind of slippery thing one would come across in the forest, shriek at, and run full-tilt away from. All from the texture that made it feel like a fish covered in half-organic rivermuck.

Suddenly, Morgana seemed to actually notice the man and she stumbled backwards. The traveler barely managed to keep her from falling on top of him.

Her eyes were wide when he caught a glimpse of them, and her hands shook with uncontrolled terror. Even her breath shuddered out of her throat like a death rattle.

"M— Ana?" he asked, his voice smaller than he would have liked. "Ana, what's wrong? Do you need to lie down?"

She dug her long nails into his arm and dragged his ear closer to her face. "May I present," she hissed with barely a tremor left in her voice, "the dishonorable bastard who stole my magic. This piece of shit brought you back here, and now we both have to deal with him, the asshole."

The traveler glanced up at the man, who stared with what could've been confusion on his face. So he didn't recognize Morgana. Good.

"It's a pleasure to meet him," he muttered back to Morgana. "Do you need to get out of here? I understand if you do."

"I can't leave you out here on your own."

"Oh, yes, you can. I can manage."

"Not to stand up, you can't."

He sighed. "If you insist."

"I do."

Morgana, a bit wobbly on her feet, stood up and yanked the traveler up with her. He leaned into the wall as she let go. She took a few more steps away.

"I'll be heading back to…" She looked hesitantly to the man. "The room. Which you can find on your own. I'll be there. If you need me."

With a nod, she fled down the corridor and out of sight. The man held out his hand as if expecting the traveler to shake it.

"I'm Armaud," he said, and the traveler thought immediately of Agravaine. "And you are?"

"A guest," replied the traveler evasively. He didn't touch Armaud's hand, or even look at it. Slowly, as if hoping the traveler would change his mind at any second, Armaud lowered his hand.

"So am I. I was hoping you'd give me your name."

"It's awfully difficult to give something you don't have."

This seemed to strike Armaud dumb. "Well," he said, in that way people do when they haven't the first idea how to respond. "Isn't that nice?"

A beat.

"I'm also the duke of Dore."

The traveler stayed silent. Morgana would've had some clever quip to show just how much she didn't care, but he couldn't think of anything in the moment. Instead of anything clever, there was just a whole lot of 'oh shit I hope he doesn't hurt Morgana or take away my magic, it's the only thing I've got anymore' that repeated and thundered through his head like a bull in an echo chamber.

"That's neat," said the traveler, "I suppose."

Suddenly, the implications of nobility being within a five mile radius of Arthur hit him in full force. Considering Agravaine, Vivian, the fake knights who’d competed in the melee years ago, and every other vaguely-charming noble who’d visited Camelot since the traveler’s arrival, chances were that the scumbag who was responsible for Morgana being magicless held a considerable measure of influence over Arthur. So Arthur would notice, and quickly, if the traveler made any moves to kill him. Granted, that was more of a mild inconvenience than a true concern at this point, but he hated to disappoint Arthur, no matter how trivial it ended up being. Irritate him beyond belief? Sure. An unwritten element of his j— his old job. But to let him down in any way? Not in a million years.

But given that there was no one else in the hallway, perhaps now was the time for action.

After all, his indecision had been his downfall in the past. Would it prove to be so now?

His magic, which had been so dormant as to almost feel absent just half an hour ago, started to buzz excitedly at the prospect of its use. Its use… 

In murder.

Cold-blooded, unprovoked murder.

How could he justify it to himself?

To Arthur?

A memory of Nimueh, staring him down at the Isle of the Blessed in her red dress and haughty superiority, rose to the forefront of his mind. One lightning strike; that’s all it would take. Odd, perhaps, to be electrocuted inside the castle, but what consequences could he possibly face? He’d already been executed once. What was Arthur going to do, kill him again?

Electricity crackled along his hand, tickling his palm like blood rushing back to it. Eager to be truly called upon, to kill again.

Yet, he’d never choose to admit his murder of Nimueh. He’d hardly want to repeat it.

And there it was. The waffling back and forth which had cost him Morgana the first time around, and then had kept Arthur from the truth in Ealdor. The flim-flamming which led him to terrible situations like the very one he was facing now; his inability to stick to his decisions dragged him to the worst possible ending. Now that he tried to examine every angle, he lost his nerve to cut the mudfish of shit down in front of him, even if the world was better off without the duke in it.

“Struck dumb?” said the duke, a smile on his face. It seemed empty, like there was nothing behind it to confirm or reveal his intent. “You wouldn’t be the first to be after hearing about who I am. Or maybe you’re just dumb all the time, and you’d be lucky to be struck clever.” He wiggled his fingers in goodbye and his smile curved into a smirk. “Toodle-oo, scar man.”

Only after the duke rounded the corner did the traveler mutter, “Well, fuck you too, my good bitch.”

—

A half an hour later at almost nine o'clock at night, the traveler found himself at the door to Gaius' chambers. It was still somewhat light out with the late summer sun, so Gaius would probably still be up and about. If the traveler was lucky, he'd have something on hand that would rejuvenate him.

He raised his hand to knock but hesitated as his sleeve fell to his elbow. His hand, his charred right hand, still looked like it was trying to heal over, even though it had been eight months since the fire in the marketplace. He touched his chest gingerly, remembering the place Nimueh had burned him. With Gaius' help and his magic, it had faded into a rough, red circle that rarely gave him any trouble. His hand had appeared to be healing similarly, at least for a few weeks, but recently its recovery seemed to have stagnated. It was probably another thing that had drained his magic.

He sighed tiredly and knocked with the minimum of energy.

The door swung open instantly.

"Oh," said Gaius shortly. "It's you."

"Yes," replied the traveler, tugging down his sleeve. "It's me."

"Come in, why don't you, and tell me what's wrong." The traveler wobbled inside and Gaius bustled in after him, looking him up and down with a frown. "You look worse than when I last saw you. Are you having difficulty balancing? Have you hit your head recently?"

The traveler sunk into the chair behind him. He caught Gaius' raised eyebrow and belatedly realized that he looked suspiciously at home. Clearing his throat, he pulled at the hem of his sleeve with shaking hands. "Balancing, no. And I haven't hit my head. But standing up and staying that way… Not so easy."

"I see. Sit still." Gaius pulled out his magnifying lens and took his time looking over the traveler's eyes. He 'harrumphed' and put it away, instead cataloging everything from a few feet away. "You say you're having difficulty remaining upright? Do you feel exceptionally tired at all? Have you over-exerted yourself?"

"Yes, I think so. I've put too much strain on my magic as of late. So I'm just tired."

"Well, don't do anything at all with your magic is you can avoid it. The best I can recommend to you is rest, and lots of it. Magic—"

"Is not to be thrown around willy-nilly, yes, I've heard that a thousand times already." The traveler raked a hand through his hair. "I'm certain that I'm still using it now, though I don't mean to. But with everything it’s trying to achieve at the moment… It's a small wonder I haven't given out already."

Gaius' eyebrow reached heights it had never dared to attempt in the past, and the traveler felt a wave of cold wash over him. "If I may, what precisely are you doing with your magic?"

He tugged at his sleeve again and grimaced, thinking about Morgana's reaction to any disclosure to anyone. And she'd surely take issue with any sort of honesty with Gaius, who had taken advantage of his position as a person with possible answers to mislead her and hide her magic. All the same, there was no one in Camelot who knew anything close to the truth, and only one person was a renowned physician. So perhaps it was worth the risk of discovery, and all of Morgana's wrath that came with it. Not that she'd stayed mad at him for very long since staying with him in a shack for a week.

"In the last week, I've been maintaining two on-going glamours; I performed two teleportation spells, one of which transported two people; I've kept up shields at all times of day; vanished a door; created a minor illusion; and attempted several, although not many, movements of objects through magic." The list, which didn't even cover things outside of his time back at Camelot, was a lot longer than he'd thought it was. Most of what he'd been doing were major spells, quite a few rungs up the ladder from casual chores. "I don't think I'd ever done so much magic in so little time before I left Camelot."

"You should do more to keep yourself in check."

"I hadn't thought of that, thanks." Sarcasm bled through his words and irritation colored his tone. "Next time I try to avoid the law to keep my old friends out of trouble, I'll do it with a fake beard made out of a rabbit. Because that'll convince anyone."

Gaius rapped the traveler’s head with a wooden mixer. "Don't be smart with me. I'm trying to help you, not that you've done anything to deserve it." Gaius leaned closer to the traveler, his back creaking audibly as he did. "Between you and me, long term glamours work better when attached to an object that has a reserve of magic, rather than drawing from you. I don't suppose you already knew that, given how you spent most of your life in Camelot, of all cities?"

He shook his head. "I have not heard of that, no. But thanks for the tip."

"Don't mention it outside of this room."

"I wouldn't dream of it."

As the traveler turned to leave, Gaius called back to him, "Oh, and you should find yourself a cane, in the interest of being more stable while walking around. I'm afraid I don't have any on hand."

He smiled.

"That won't be a problem."

—

The traveler wandered back to his room for the appropriate privacy to open the tear. He leaned heavily into the wall as made his way back, and nearly collapsed with relief when Morgana met him out in hallway and helped him into the bed.

"Are you alright?" she asked once he'd caught his breath.

"I was going to ask you the same thing. I'm just a bit tired, but you just saw the man who stole your magic and left you, almost lifeless, in a hut in the middle of nowhere." He hugged her as tightly as he could with his limbs acting like helium balloons again. "The last time you saw him, you called me because you were so scared you couldn't move. I think what you're going through takes precedence right now."

She shook her head. "Thanks. But I took care of it. The cook was nice, for once, and gave me some tea to help calm down. Oh, and Gwen is gone, and will be for a few days. I can stay here, if you need me to help with anything, or look out for more screaming dreams, or anything like that. Or I can find another room with a bed instead of a chair to sleep in."

"I'll be fine, Morgana. Don’t sleep in a chair, we both know how stiff you get."

"Yes, but we also both know how much you scream in your sleep sometimes, or randomly can't move with pain, or anything else. You're not impervious to your curse just because you're asleep." She lowered her voice even though the door was closed. "And between you and me, I don't trust what might happen if someone sees you doing magic or if Arthur suddenly changes his mind on having you executed again. I don't think you have the energy to escape it a second time."

The traveler nodded. His energy was almost nonexistent, as a matter of fact, and he had the feeling that any major spells he cast would do more harm than good to him. "I wish Arthur would repeal the ban on magic like he's been saying he will. How long does he need to do something he's said he'll do since we arrived? He is the king after all."

Morgana's face lit up. "Actually— I completely forgot about this— he released a draft of an order to legalize magic earlier today. Or, he did to us, at least. Feel free to read it any time." She took a piece of paper out of her pocket and put it on the chair as she stood up. "I'll leave it right here. But you should know that I don't think he's necessarily doing it because he's changed his opinion on magic. It's possible he's doing it out of political necessity. Or that he realizes the cause behind most magical attacks, and believes that not hunting down children and everyone with a sensitivity to magic would be in his best interests. He's not wrong, exactly, but still. I suspect that his newfound resolve of allowing magic to run free has more to do with his political shrewdness than his compassion."

"You always think the worst of him," he groused.

"He gives me no reason to think otherwise. For that matter, when has he ever given you a reason to think that he'd ever believe magic could be anything other than evil?" Morgana retorted.

A conversation from almost ten months ago engulfed his thoughts.

_"Arthur, I was thinking about magic, and-"_

_The pinning against the wall._

_Nearly having his shoulder dislocated._

_The distinct sense of staring into the face of death._

_"You were WHAT?"_

He swallowed and looked away from her.

"Perhaps not then." There was a beat as Morgana stared at him in shock, clearly not expecting him to say anything, however mild, against Arthur. "Now, are you actually going to go find somewhere to sleep? You did say you would, and I'd rather not continue this conversation now."

"Then I'll see you tomorrow. Don't die while I'm away." She smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I know you're more than capable of it."

Morgana left with a cheeky wink. The traveler pulled his sidhe staff out of the tear with only minimal drain on his energy, though that still left him shaking. With only a tiny shape-altering spell, it shifted to a suitable cane with a fitting dragon head as its handle and the crystal as its eye.

—

He spent the next few hours roaming the hallways aimlessly, trying to adjust to using the sidhe cane. It wasn’t too awkward, but figuring out the best way to walk with it was a process that took a good half hour of experimentation. Still, it was better than trying to cross one of the wider hallways only to be caught, unsupported, in the middle.

Having decided that he’d seen everything of any possible interest to him inside the castle, he ambled outside.

The moon was little more than a sliver in the sky, having been a new moon just the night before. The whole town was dark, lit sparingly with lanterns at stalls that tried to rake in a few more customers before finally admitting that was all for the day. No one was really out and about except for the shopkeepers tending their stalls, and half of them were asleep in their chairs.

He wandered towards the gate, just to see if he could strike up a bit of conversation with the guards before turning in. But as he came into sight of them and waved, they leveled their polearms at him.

"Anthony, is that the sorceror that the Dame Tane showed us a photo of? That scar certainly looks familiar."

The traveler's heart sank.

"Yeah, looks like him."

He took a step backwards. Anthony and Rob. His friends, who now pointed weapons at him, because he was hiding behind a mask. And now he couldn't even have a nice conversation with them.

"No worries, sirs," he said now holding his free hand up in a gesture of surrender. "I'll just head back to the… er, to my home. Have a good night, both of you!"

Faster than he would have thought himself capable, the traveler hustled away. There really wasn't anything else he could think to do this late at night, and the drain he'd put on himself walking around for three hours really made his decision for him. He needed to just go to sleep and rest for as long as his body would let him.

—

He opened his eyes to, of all places, the grassy parapet. Aside from a few lazy clouds, the sky was blessedly clear. A smile curled across his face, with memories of Arthur laughing with him. Unlike Arthur's room, there was nothing up here to sour the place. Only a few scattered memories of playful banter which eased bad experiences.

That said, it was different than he remembered. The gardener had planted wildflowers which dotted the landscape, giving the place a cheerful atmosphere. But the change was nice, even welcome.

He turned back to look out over the town. Watching people, tiny as they were from so high up, was endlessly entertaining. Partially, it was bizarre to watch people moving from such a great height. But it was also like seeing thousands of books all come together to depict their stories side by side, overlapping and messy and wonderful. One world with millions of lives all bumping into each other in a chaotic, unexpected game of chess played by children.

“Merlin!” Arthur’s voice cut across his thoughts like thunder. “Merlin, I’m so glad to see you!”

He whirled around to see Arthur charging at him full-tilt, arms outstretched. Despite the disconnect between him and what Arthur was calling him, seeing Arthur was never a bad thing. Especially when he looked like he was coming in for a hug. His small smile grew uncontrollably. Strange, though, that his glamour wasn’t working.

“Arthur! What are you doing up here?”

“What am I— what are YOU doing up here? Merlin, it’s been far too long. I can’t believe you’re here. Just…” A mere few steps from him, Arthur dropped his arms sheepishly and dragged a hand through his hair. “Where’ve you been?”

He felt his eyebrows crease together, and was surprised when Arthur actually waited for an answer rather than making a snide comment on his bewilderment. “Er, around, Arthur. Out, so to speak, and now I’m back. I’ve been, well, here. At least for a while.”

Something in his memory felt foggy or obscured. Blocked, somehow. It was, contrary to his expectations, pleasant.

“Oh come on, Merlin. That doesn’t explain anything. ‘Out’ is popping down to the tavern. You were gone for…” Arthur’s face drew together in confusion as well. “Months! I’ve lost track of how many, it seems. But months, Merlin! You weren’t ‘out,’ you were gone! Dead, even!” His look of bafflement disappeared, and his eyes shone with tears. Not that it could be mentioned to him without being punched in the face. Well, maybe not the face. Arthur had never done that. “Merlin, please. You must tell me everything.”

Arthur closed the remaining gap between them and reached out towards his shoulder.

The traveler opened his mouth to explain, and his memories chose then to erupt to the forefront of his mind, a terrifying explosion of recollection. And the first of those was that he was tired.

Terribly, ridiculously, above-all-reason exhausted.

With a gasp, he fell to his knees, scraping his hands on the stone. As he caught a glimpse of his hands, his right scarred over with burns. Trying not to cry, he curled it against his chest and collapsed onto his chest, wheezing.

The light which had reached everywhere just a second ago vanished.

“Merlin? Merlin, what’s happening? What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Arthur’s barrage of concern didn’t help in the least. Instead, it felt more like rocks pounding mercilessly against a shield or the clang of Arthur’s sword falling on his helmet in practice. Over and over again, without fail.

Whimpering, he covered his ears.

Wound tightly in the fetal position, something sharp jabbed through his stomach. Then again, a third, fourth, and fifth time. Through his small intestine if he had to guess. With his identification of the pain, it hit him full force abruptly. Simultaneously everywhere and agonizingly focused, it twisted in his stomach and ripped through his chest, coursing through his veins like fire. Shudders wracked his whole body, throwing him back and forth like a ship in a vicious storm.

“Help,” he choked, praying that Arthur would still be there. “Help me, please.”

Something wet and slimy fell onto his hand. It moved sluggishly, as if resisting gravity to make it as bad as possible. When he opened his eyes a crack to see it, it was black that glinted a malicious red when it caught the limited light. It reminded him of blood, blood he couldn’t have seen anywhere except in his nightmares. He tried not to scream. But he might have already been screaming, if the burning of his throat said anything. Or maybe more black blood had fallen in his mouth and was scalding it from the inside.

Arthur came into view, thankfully. He was untouched by the black blood which had started to pool around the parapet like a creeping slime. Instead, he glowed lambently.

“Oh, you can never just be a–” a gasp “normal fucking person, can you?” Pain lanced up his side, and he shrieked. “No, you have to glow. Why not just have, I don’t know–” His hand banged into the stone of the wall. “Lackluster hair, for one?”

Arthur leaned closer, curious and concerned. Damn him.

But the opportunity was there, so the traveler shot up and made a frantic attempt to cling to Arthur’s shoulders, feeling desperate to stay with the one person he could count on. The one person that he could truly claim to live for.

Fear swallowed Arthur’s face as the traveler mumbled urgently to him, hoping that somehow, no matter what condition he was in, that he cared about the terrible, awful prat. That he was important and unignorable, the person the traveler orbited around.

But all that flew out the window as his hands felt crushed and his feet burned and the rest of his froze and was stabbed murderously.

“Save me, Arthur. Please.”

The black blood flooded the parapet and inundated the traveler entirely except for his head, leaving only his face untouched. He could see Arthur, even in the black-red light of the world with dripping mammatus clouds behind the prince. Tears streamed down Arthur’s face and he shook violently, somewhat restricted by the goop. The traveler’s own eyes were hot and wet, but the tears skittered across the sea of blood rather than being absorbed by it.

“I’m sorry. Arthur, I’m so sorry.”

The black, sanguine mess drowned him entirely and poured down his throat. Even in the molasses consistency, he thrashed on instinct.

—

His eyes snapped open to a candlelit room and it took him a second to do two things: first, to recognize the room he was in as his bedroom at the castle and second, that Gaius and Morgana were holding him down.

“Hello,” he said, his voice ragged.

“Oh, thank fuck,” said Morgana in response.

Gaius released him hesitantly, and Morgana followed his lead, her relief evident. “You were having a fit. A rather violent one.”

“Thanks for not letting me hurt myself in my sleep, in that case.”

“Also,” said Morgana, “you called out to me. Through magic. Pretty loudly, too. What on earth were you dreaming about?”

Gaius looked at her sharply. “Do you mean to tell me this has happened before?”

She flapped her hand at him dismissively. “What were you dreaming about, my friend? Was it him again?”

“Could it have been anyone else?” The traveler touched his forehead, wondering if he’d have a headache soon. It was slick with sweat. “But it was so much worse than any other dream I’ve had. It felt like being taunted, almost. I just… I hate it. I hate this dream so much. The beginning…”

He trailed off and did not explain further. He didn’t think he’d be able to bear to describe it out loud.

Morgana nodded in understanding. “Try and get some more rest. It’s hardly dawn, and it’s not like we have anywhere to be today.” She settled herself next to the traveler on the bed, cushioning her head with her arm.

“If that’s all,” Gaius said, looking perplexed, “then I’ll be on my way. Come and get me whenever you have need of me.”

With that, he slipped out, leaving the two sorcerors on the bed.

“Morgana, if my suspicions are correct and Arthur shared this dream with me, I think we have a problem.” He tried to sit up, but she just shook her head at him. “I had an attack in my dream. If he connects that to what happened the first night we were here, then he’ll know. I don’t know what to do if that happens. If he knows, then he’ll not just know that I’ve been away, more or less by choice, this whole time, but he’ll also know that I have magic and I’ve been lying about that since we met, and he’ll hate me forever! What… I don’t know what I could even do if that happened.”

“We could always run off and live with a bear.”

Surprised, the traveler let out a bark of a laugh.

“Yes. We could always do that.”

“Anyways,” said Morgana cantankerously, “he hardly deserves–“

The warning bell clanged angrily through her sentence and didn’t let her finish. She slid off the bed and poked her head though the door, letting in frightened cries of “Murder! Murder at the gate!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all very much for reading! Sorry it took so long to update, I was out of the country and then had finals and didn't really have time to write, edit, or do any of that fun stuff. So here it is now, and I hope you all enjoy it! I sure like writing it, except for the bit at the beginning which was the bane of my existence for like several weeks and literally contained the phrase "emo moron" because I couldn't think of how else to put it. Points if you can find where it used to be!
> 
> Also, I finally figured out how to do italics, so that's a win.
> 
> Please comment and tell me what you liked! Even screaming at me unintelligibly at least tells me that you're reading it. I love hearing what you all think about it.
> 
> Thanks to my wonderful beta @WolvaraAsh once again for being patient enough with me to edit things at eleven o'clock at night and reading things that were barely coherent with a mess of adverbs. She's on every social media I can think of off the top of my head, and her art and writing is amazing. Check her out if you get the chance!


	21. Face Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of things come a little too close for comfort

Arthur lurched up the stairs of the castle, the inescapable truth of Merlin's death throwing him off balance.

Merlin— wonderful, perfect Merlin— was certainly dead.

Gaius had said so weeks ago and Arthur understood why. He'd asked for a funeral for Merlin and Arthur knew that he would give him one. Gaius could ask for a statue for Merlin and Arthur would have it built. Hell, he might even have one built without Gaius asking for it. Not that he'd tell anyone that. And if anyone asked why a larger-than-life bronze statue of Merlin was being cast for the town square, he could always say Gaius asked for it.

Beyond trying to commemorate Merlin, what could Arthur possibly do now? Without a clumsy, talkative manservant— no, friend— no… Whatever Merlin was, how could Arthur possibly live without him? How was he supposed to function without the teasing and the reason and the one person he could let his guard down around?

Maybe, after the funeral was over and the encroaching army was dealt with, he could just retreat into his room, lock the door, and hide under the bed until he was ready to come out. Until the void in his chest was filled.

After all, Merlin was the glue that kept Arthur's close court together. Merlin had been Gwaine's friend first, he’d brought Lancelot and Percival to their side when they retook the castle, and even had befriended Gwen before Arthur. Without him, the Round Table was at risk of falling to pieces.

The worst part of it all was that Arthur had truly convinced himself, no matter what he told others, that Merlin would make it back somehow. That, even though he'd been gone for months, he'd arrive triumphantly with a story of tripping over a tree root and being delayed by bandits. And that would be it, because Merlin would be safe.

But he wasn't safe. And he hadn't come back in months.

Even Gaius, with his endless, unfounded confidence in Merlin's ability to survive, was calling for a funeral.

And if Gaius thought Merlin was dead, then he had to be.

Merlin's life had turned to the final page.

He was gone, well and truly.

Arthur emerged droopingly from the stairwell, thinking wistfully of the memories of Merlin that lived on this parapet. He looked out over it, reliving the time with Merlin all those years ago, before Arthur was even king. Before this whole mess had ever been set into motion, at a time when they'd saved the day and just joked together while overlooking the city.

"Oh," he whispered. "Oh, that's cruel."

On the other side of the the parapet, facing away from him, was a mop of unforgettable hair in a stupid brown jacket.

"Merlin." The name felt light and soft in his mouth.

The dead Merlin, the one who'd been missing for so long, just stood there, as if he'd always stood there. He leaned casually over the wall, giving Arthur a glimpse of his midriff… Not the time, not the time. He was alive! He was safe! He looked healthy!

And he looked right at home on the parapet, an unfamiliar peace written over his features.

Almost without noticing, he set himself to a run, a sprint. "Merlin!" His arms opened to cling to Merlin and never let go, almost of their own accord. "Merlin, I'm so glad to see you!"

Merlin— wonderful, perfect Merlin— turned around slowly. The peace turned to confusion and joy, an intoxicating mixture that made Arthur's stomach flutter. Then a third thing flickered across Merlin's face, the face Arthur had learned to read better than anyone else's, and he saw in Merlin's widening eyes and the grip of his hand that it was fear.

He slowed down, careful not to barrel into him or crush him in a hug.

"Arthur!" Merlin called back. "What are you doing here?"

What reason could Merlin possibly have for being confused that Arthur was there? It was his castle after all. And why had Merlin suddenly returned? Why now, when there was a funeral in the works and a citadel to mourn him, and there'd already been nearly nine months of misery? Why come back now?

Arthur thought of the voice he'd been calling Merlin's ghost, which was silent in every dream he had with Merlin. Perhaps it was Merlin, real and 100% alive Merlin, calling out to him somehow? But that was ridiculous. Merlin would need magic to do that, and Merlin's ghost was nothing but his head trying to cope with Merlin's absence. There was nothing there, nothing.

So this was either Merlin's ghost pulling itself through the veil to see him, which Merlin would do, the stubborn idiot… or Merlin was alive, and had been the whole time. So how was he here now?

“What am I— what are YOU doing up here? Merlin, it’s been far too long. I can’t believe you’re here. Just...” His arms dropped back to his side sullenly. "Where’ve you been?"

'And why are you back now?' he wanted to ask, but Arthur couldn't bring himself to. Because if this wasn't Merlin— if this was something else, an illusion or a trick of his brain— he didn't want to know. The hope was enough. But he needed to know where Merlin had been, at the very least. He needed to know what had delayed him so long that he was only back now, so that Arthur could travel there with a hundred of his best warriors and obliterate anyone that had dared lay a hand on Merlin.

"Er, around, Arthur. Out, so to speak, and now I’m back. I’ve been, well, here. At least for a while." Merlin's words sounded clumsy and cumbersome, like he wasn't sure what he was doing. Which wasn't new, but this sounded more like he was wrong-footed or thrown for a loop rather than just not paying attention. How long had he been back? Why hadn't he come forward? Did he know what was going on in Camelot?

"Oh come on, Merlin," Arthur chastised, trying to swallow his fear. "That doesn’t explain anything. ‘Out’ is popping down to the tavern. You were gone for..." Time escaped him, and he frowned. "Months! I’ve lost track of how many, it seems. But months, Merlin! You weren’t ‘out,’ you were gone! Dead, even! Merlin, please. You must tell me everything."

Perhaps if he could just prove that Merlin was there, that he was real… Perhaps if he just could touch him and see that he didn't vanish into mist, it could be real.

Merlin looked ready to explain, and Arthur sighed with relief. Then bruises faded into being under Merlin’s eyes and he sagged to the ground with a gasp. He only barely could hold himself up but managed by locking his arms, which seemed to get skinnier as Arthur watched. Merlin's hand— his right, just like the sorceror's, which seemed an odd similarity— burned in a matter of seconds and he tucked it protectively against his chest. With the last support gone, Merlin fell fully onto the ground, crushing his hand further.

The sun vanished, and Arthur looked around at the sky for clouds. Not only were there clouds, they were black, pustular clouds the like of which Arthur had never seen. This was not something of nature. He looked back to Merlin, who was still crumpled on the ground. If whatever sorcerous thing that was threatening them started attacking, there would be issues getting him to safety.

"Merlin, listen to me," said Arthur. Merlin didn't seem aware of anything around him, but it was worth a shot. "Listen. You need to get up, okay? Something's wrong, and I don't know what it is, but you can tell me later. Right now, we need to get to shelter." His voice rose as Merlin yelped and curled into as tight a ball as he could. Arthur had no doubt that if he could turn in on himself, Merlin would until he disappeared from existence entirely. "Merlin? Merlin! What's happening? What's wrong? Are you okay? Talk to me!"

Flinching at every word, Merlin clapped his hands over his ears. His shirt sleeve fell down a bit, revealing burn scars that went up to his elbow. They'd been tended to almost carelessly, as if the physician Merlin had gone to didn't care whether he healed or not.

Just as Arthur reached towards him to hold him and comfort him, or simply hoist Merlin over his shoulder and run back into the castle, Merlin flew backwards like he'd been kicked. Then again and again and again, until he was just thrashing futilely on the stone with his eyes squeezed shut. "Help. Help me, please."

Frantically, Arthur tried to think of something to do.

He'd seen something like this before, in a little girl of one of the lower-level courtiers. Gaius had done something to make sure she didn't choke, but Arthur couldn't remember what it was for the life of him. He'd said something about it lasting shorter than others, and that it was a relief.

So it would end on its own? Maybe, but Arthur didn't know he could count on that.

What had Gaius done? What could Arthur do?

Before he could figure it out, a drop of black blood landed on Merlin's hand, blood that looked like it had came from one of the creatures he'd killed over the years. Something dark and evil. Something that took lives just to kill, not even out of necessity. He stared at it dumbly for a second as it spread threateningly over the parapet, and he slowly realized that Merlin was screaming at the top of his lungs. He didn't pause for breath or stop screaming. Not until his voice rasped out and he could do nothing but hiss hoarsely.

Arthur broke at last from his stupor and leaned into Merlin's line of sight, which had gotten rather narrow.

Merlin rolled his eyes, because of course he did.

Words fought their way out of his mouth, but they weren't loud enough to hear. Every few phrases, Merlin gasped or coughed and it sounded like he was in agony. At last, Arthur made out two words.

"Look closer," grumbled Merlin, and his words faded back into mumbles. Sure, the words were squished together a bit and sort of slurred, but Merlin had definitely said "look closer." There was nothing else he could have said. What could he possibly mean, though? Was Arthur meant to actually look at him closer than he already was, or just to be more insightful?

He flipped a coin in his head and decided to try the former first.

Merlin grabbed at his shoulders and clung there, his fingernails digging into Arthur's shoulders. Arthur could feel his jaw moving rapidly and gibbering nonsense flowed incessantly from his mouth, but he couldn't make out what Merlin was saying. Something about importance and orbits. Planets, maybe? It seemed a bit odd for Merlin to be mumbling about like he was on his deathbed. Something wasn't right. There was something he was missing.

Then Merlin shrieked and let go, spasming as he sank into the black blood that covered the parapet. "Save me, Arthur. Please."

His eyes were gold.

They must had been gold for a while now.

Not yellow, as most sorceror's eyes were. Not sickly or infected yellow.

Gold, untarnished and beautiful, glowed from Merlin's eyes.

Which meant that Merlin had magic, somehow. And he'd been hiding it, for goodness knew how long.

A flash of realization snapped across Arthur's mind. It didn't matter whether or not Merlin had magic, because the fact was that he was drowning in blood in the one place that hadn't been tainted by a thousand memories of battle and danger. All that mattered was that he was in pain and danger, and needed help. Help that Arthur couldn't give him. Unbidden, tears blurred Arthur's vision and he felt them streaming down his face.

Merlin was crying too and the blood locked the two of them in place.

"I'm sorry, Arthur. I'm so sorry."

The blood swallowed Merlin completely and Arthur could only stare in horror as desperate movement writhed where Merlin had been. It stopped abruptly and Arthur slumped into the malicious black blood, his energy gone. Without Merlin, what could he possibly do? With Merlin vanished and dead, with no doubt left the shield Arthur from his grief, what could he possibly do?

——

Arthur woke to his sheet wrapped tightly around him, leaving only his face exposed. As he came fully into awareness, he shuddered at the reminder of Merlin's death on the parapet, with his limbs trapped in a slow-moving flood of ichor. He struggled out of the sheet and into a shirt, then rushed out the door of his room as soon as he yanked his boots on. He needed to see the parapet, just to reassure himself that no gore marred it.

He sprinted through the hallways and up the stairs, his way lit only by the occasional sconce or torch. Even by the windows, there was hardly any more light than anywhere else. He cursed his inability to sleep for long periods of time and rushed on.

He skidded onto the parapet and an overwhelming wave of deja vu hit him. He almost saw Merlin standing across the field for a second before reality sank in. It was almost a relief that his dreams weren't a "conversation" as he'd first felt they were. At least Merlin wasn't going through everything Arthur saw happening to him. He still didn't want to call it what he was sure it was, that Merlin was dead— there was nothing to escape it. Even his hope that the sorceror was somehow Merlin with newfound magic and amnesia had been dashed— and every dream he had was just more grief haunting him.

He sighed and trudged back down the stairs to see if there was anything he could do until the castle woke up.

Just as he reached his door, the jarring clang of the warning bell sounded, making his bones vibrate. A scattered flow of servants rushed past him.

"Murder!" they shouted in every direction. "Murder at the main gate! On your guard, people! There's been a murder!"

Alarmed, Arthur sprinted past them out the door of the castle and didn't stop until he reached the main gate. A crowd had gathered, though it was kept at a reasonable distance by a ring of guards. He pushed his way through the mass of people until they realized who he was and the guards let him through to the corpse.

'This is an exciting morning,' grumbled Merlin's ghost. Arthur barely kept from replying and only hid the smile playing on his face with a hand over his mouth in what could look contemplative.

It was a bloody corpse, certainly, but not a messy one. Something that looked like paper rested on its chest. Most of the blood was around its neck and upper body, but it was impossible to tell exactly where the killing blow had been struck.

"Guards, set up a more permanent border. I'd like you to return to duty as soon as possible, and take some of the trainees with you as reinforcements. I have no doubt Gaius as well as half the castle are on their way down, and I'd prefer to avoid any contamination of the crime scene." There was a chorus of 'yes, sire' and a few of the guards scampered off to find spare wood to make a makeshift fence. "Now, whose idea was it to send servants announcing homicide through the halls?"

A guard, one of the younger ones, raised his hand, a look of timid pride on his face. Another one, who looked like she could be his sister, rolled her eyes. "Mine, sire."

"For future reference, don't do that." The guard's face fell. "It induces panic and crowds like this. Instead, set off the alarm, ask people to remain inside if you think their safety is threatened, and fetch those you need individually."

Normally, Arthur would have been harsher. But this guard hardly looked like he was old enough to shave, and there wasn't any reason to do more than correct his mistake.

"I want to the two of you to disperse this crowd as quickly as possible." He crouched, trying to figure out how to pick up the paper without getting blood all over his hands. He could just go for it, but it was possible there was a curse or some sort of contact poison, and he wasn't feeling reckless today.

"How should we do that, sire?"

He groaned. The guards needed better training in crowd control. "Just tell them that it's being taken care of. It's true and will calm them down. Go."

They turned away, and Arthur resumed his careful analysis of the paper.

"Getting much out of a face-down sheet of paper, are you?" Arthur pivoted to see Dame Tane, Martha at her side with an arm around the Dame's waist.

"Morning to you, too," he replied, amused. "Just trying to test my ability to see through solid objects. Not going very well, I admit."

"A king of many talents, then," laughed Martha. "Good to know that you have career options." She held out her right hand, the one not slung around her wife's waist. "I don't think we've met before. I'm Martha Tane. I was the woman who appeared in the middle of a council meeting about six months ago, in case you don't remember."

Arthur shook it firmly and smiled. "Oh, I do. You gave us all quite a shock, pulling a stunt like that. And I met you again more recently, but you were probably a bit too drunk to remember."

"I thought I heard a kingly voice as Ely carried me home. Sorry about the bad impressions."

'Stop— flirting— and pay— attention— to— the murder," Merlin's ghost gritted out, almost jealous in nature. Arthur nearly wanted to laugh.

"No harm done." Although he didn't exactly know Martha, there was no point in interrogating her unless she came under suspicion for the far more pressing issue: the murder. "Now, and I put this question to both of you, how do you think I should go about picking this piece of paper up, given that there might be any number of dangers attached to it?"

Wordlessly, Martha took a handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to Dame Tane, who plucked the note off of the body deftly. She handed it to Arthur, who was feeling a bit foolish, with a smirk. "Like that, sir."

He nodded, already too distracted by the message to care to correct her on the incorrect title or address her cheek.

It was written in some strange manner, so unfamiliar that he had no hope of deciphering it. It reminded him of how he felt around the sorceror and Ana, that he should be able to recognize what was sitting right in front of him, but an unknown force pushed his mind away from their identities. He was almost certain that the two of them used magic to hide but with no way to prove it, it wasn’t worth accusing the pair of them of anything. That said, they might have unparalleled knowledge of magic like what was probably obscuring the corpse’s message. Still, it might just be a dead language. It would not do to discount any possibility.

“I can’t read this. Do you know the script?” He held the paper out to Dame Tane, but she didn’t take it. “Dame Tane?”

“I know him,” she said, as if in shock.

“You what?” chorused Arthur and Martha. Arthur shot to his feet and he and Martha glanced at each other, surprised.

'I don't,' grouched Merlin’s voice.

“I said I know him. He’s the person I sent to watch the army’s movements. His name was Normel.” Dame Tane turned to Arthur, pulling her wife to her chest and resting her chin on Martha’s head. “This isn’t a random murder.”

“Few are.”

“True, but the motivation of this particular murder is clear as glass.” She met Arthur’s eyes, concern written in her eyebrows. “Someone knew what he was doing and who he was working for. And that’s impossible. Not even he knew that. I never told him he was working for Camelot, he never dressed in clothes with any insignia, and he never even lived in the citadel. He was as removed from Camelot as I could make him.”

Arthur frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying someone knew he was there, what he was doing, and who he was working for. Maybe they didn’t know his name or face, but they damn well knew everything else. And I only ever discussed my spy in a select audience.”

He sighed. “One of the council.”

'You handpicked them. Consider that, and then think about Dame Tane's report. What else was going on then?' Merlin's counsel was never unwelcome, but he didn't know if he could trust his uncontrolled imagination on this. 'Oh, come on. Think! Even a cabbage head like you should be able to figure this out.'

Arthur bit back an irritated retort and focused on Dame Tane.

She nodded in response and Martha squawked in protest. “Almost certainly.”

“I’ll have them each questioned.” He motioned to a stray guard, who was making a poor attempt at looks casual while gawking at the dead body. “You. Round up everyone on my council, alright?” He turned back to Dame Tane. “I’m afraid that includes you. I need to cover all my bases.”

“I understand, sir. Of course.” She closed her eyes in acknowledgement, careful not to disturb her wife.

“Well, I don’t,” snapped Martha. “Elysande clearly cared about the safety of this man. She worked with him in such a way as to keep everyone as safe as possible and did this to protect Camelot, which we’re not even from! Her loyalty to you is because she believes in your ability as a leader, not because she was born here or believes she owes it to you. Elysande did everything she could to mitigate risks. You can’t blame her for this man’s death.”

“Normel,” Dame Tane reminded her.

“Yes. Normel. Well—“

“And please, darling, it’s fine. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask me questions about this.” Her head dropped to Martha’s shoulder and she murmured into her wife’s ear. “This isn’t unjust, I promise you.”

“Investigation expectations are bizarre, and I’m glad you know what they are,” Martha mumbled back.

Arthur cleared his throat, feeling rather like a third wheel.

"Let's move on to the note, for now." He waved it for emphasis. "I can't read it. The script is weird or the language is unfamiliar or something. Bottom line, I don't know what it says. Can either of you read it?"

Dame Tane took the message and handed it to Martha, who put it very close to her face and muttered as she tried to go through it. Every few lines, she'd go back to a different point and start muttering again, in a slightly different pitch or tone. Her mumbled sentences go more and more agitated as she went on.

"No," she said eventually. "I can't read it. It gives me a headache just looking at it."

"Well, I did ask both of you. Dame Tane, do you think you can?"

She shook her head. "No. If Martha can't, I most certainly cannot. She's the linguist, of the two of us. If this letter defeats even her capabilities, we might not find someone able to read it in this lifetime."

'Ask Gaius,' Merlin suggested rationally.

"Read what?" croaked a voice that was becoming irritatingly familiar.

The sorceror and Ana came into view from behind Dame Tane's muscle. The sorceror looked far worse for wear than when Arthur had seen him last, which was saying something when he'd fallen unconscious last time. Now, he played a balance game of trying to walk while simultaneously leaning on Ana and an ornate cane that Arthur hadn't seen before. It was shaped into a dragon's head and a otherworldly, teal stone served as its eye.

Arthur sighed. The sorceror and his friend would find out eventually and he'd already theorized how they might be of help, so it seemed that he had everything to gain from telling them now (though still plenty to lose).

"This. None of us can read it." At Arthur's instruction, Martha handed it to Ana, who awkwardly held it out in front of the sorceror. He squinted at it and frowned.

"No wonder no one here can read it," he said under his breath. Ana read over it once too, though her reaction was quite contrary to the sorceror's. She burst out laughing.

Arthur wondered if her laughter was ever at anything other at other's inconvenience.

"What is it?" demanded Arthur, and Dame Tane peered at the two of them irritably. She probably didn't appreciate them, potential enemies of the state, appearing at a crime scene.

"It's a taunt, Arth— your majesty. You're not supposed to be able to read it. It was left to tease you and waste time." The sorceror sagged back onto Ana. She re-balanced him without a thought. "It basically says that you're being attacked soon because you've killed everyone who might be able to read that message."

"And you can read it because...?"

"Because I have magic, Arthur. Keep up."

'Yeah, clotpole. Keep up,' Merlin said and his giggles floated through Arthur's head.

Arthur pressed a hand to his forehead. "And how can Ana read it? She doesn't have magic, does she? I was pretty sure she didn't, anymore."

The traveler's eyes narrowed, but Ana patted his shoulder as if to dismiss it. "She's still sensitive to it. She just can't use it. For her, it's an innate talent. Her ability to manipulate it is gone, but the sense that comes with it is still there. There's tons of magic sensitive people living in Camelot, they just don't get arrested because they can't actually do much."

'Uther would've had a fit,' chortled Merlin. 'But you're not. Look at you, an improvement already.'

"That's all very fascinating," interrupted Dame Tane. "And I want to know more about that. But right now, we have a dead body in front of us and a vacancy for a spy. Let's address that before something that we can't control."

"I'm trained for everything that Normel was, if not more," piped up Martha. "I'll be his replacement."

Dame Tane worked her jaw for a second. Arthur wondered only briefly what was running through her mind; probably fear for her wife's safety, given that the corpse of the last person to fill that position lay at their feet. Then, hesitantly, she bobbed her head yes. "Acceptable. I'll debrief you in more detail later."

They left, apparently satisfied with what they'd seen. Arthur looked back at the body, taking in how the jaw hung off the face unnaturally and dry blood covered the slit neck.

As Arthur stared at it, the sorceror and Ana slunk off to do their sorcerous things, the knights arrived with Gaius and a sheet, and Arthur stumbled off to his room somewhere in the flurry of activity. He’d rarely seen corpses more than a few hours after death— burial for knights and soldiers was either immediate or didn’t involve him, and he’d never attended the funeral of any peasants. Though that would be changing soon, there still would be no body.

He recalled Gaius explaining to him how the muscles in the jaw fell apart after the period of rigor mortis, but seeing it felt unnerving, like spiders crawling up his back.

He almost hoped he never found Merlin’s body, just so he never had to see Merlin’s jaw hang open like that, ghoulish and empty.

—

Still in a fog of oddly mixed dread and relief, Arthur ordered a slew of servants to bring his knights and council to the council chambers immediately, and half an hour saw him sitting in his chair considering preparation and his new trainees. The stack of military reports had been brought in from his desk early on and he flipped through them over and over again, looking for something he’d missed. Every once in a while, he’d see something useful that he hadn’t already read a hundred times and he’d scribble it onto the slate to his right. Though his handwriting was illegible to everyone but Merlin, he didn’t need anyone else to read this. This was purely a meeting to discuss with Dame Tane and the knights, so no need for haughty pretense. War was not the domain of most of his council, no matter how they liked to claim knowledge of it.

Speaking of, they were certainly taking their time getting to the meeting. Sure, it wasn’t much longer after dawn, but Arthur would have thought they’d all been awake with the servants screaming bloody murder in every corner of the castle.

Grumpily, Arthur turned to the next report.

‘Don’t exhaust yourself,’ reminded Merlin’s ghost.

Arthur grunted in reply. “Thanks for the concern.”

‘Really. You have to rest sometime. And I don’t think nightmares count.’

“Well, how would you know? I bet you dream of unicorns and daisies.” Something tickled at his brain, but he ignored it. “Always such a girl, Merlin.”

‘No, unicorns count as nightmares. There was a good minute where I thought you were dead, you prat!’ Merlin’s scolding reopened memories that Arthur had completely forgotten about. Sure, the drought and loss of food was stressful and memorable, but he tried not to think about the labyrinth of Gedref. The fear of seeing Merlin in an impossible, life-or-death situation had haunted him for months afterwards, though he never told Merlin that. He’d never asked Merlin what happened to him, figuring that Merlin would disclose when he felt like it, given how chatty he was otherwise. Since he hadn’t, Arthur had decided to leave it be and eventually forgotten about it. Now, though, he’d never know.

A knock came at the massive doors, cutting off Merlin’s voice which prattled on about unicorns this and idiot princes that, and Arthur invited them in.

Dame Tane was revealed at the head of a clump of his councillors. She was bedecked in armor, her war hammer resting comfortably at her side. The sharp contrast in size from her to the next tallest councillor was more pronounced than ever and utterly laughable.

He waved them to their seats and organized his papers.

"What kept you?"

Arthur didn't miss the glare Dame Tane shot at the rest of the council, though the council seemed to.

"We just ran into some chaos," she answered cheerfully. There was an edge to her voice that made the other people shift in their seats, looking guilty. "But I sorted it out, not to worry."

"Good to hear." He straightened his pile of papers again. "Now, this is a military meeting. As such, we'll wait until the knights get here. I expect they're not to far behind you?"

The head of international affairs shook her head. "I expected they'd be here before us. I don't think we saw them on our way over, so maybe they're off running errands or something? Who can say. But if Leon's with them, nothing too bad will happen, right?"

"No," Arthur snorted, "of course not."

It was only a few minutes more before the knights and Gaius arrived and took their seats. As usual, it was only the Round Table knights that joined. They would take the information back to the knights that each of them managed, and Arthur could control the information reaching everyone. He nodded to each of them in turn, taking in how ruffled they all looked. Gwaine had some dried blood on his hands that he scrubbed at periodically and Elyan kept wiping his hands with a handkerchief. Perhaps they'd carried the corpse after Gaius arrived to inspect it, though he hadn't thought it would take them half an hour to deal with moving and disposing of a dead body.

"Sorry we're late, sire," said Leon. "There was more to do with the corpse than we expected."

"It's not a problem, Leon. Now that you're here, we can begin." Arthur clapped his hands, capturing the attention of everyone in the room except for Lancelot, who stared despondently at the floor. "We've been preparing for attack for some time now with our more intense training of guards and townsfolk. Hopefully, this will overwhelm them in numbers. Now, the corpse found at the gate this morning was a warning. More accurately, it was taunt. You may have heard—"

"It was killed by a snake with 13 heads!" shrieked the head of agriculture.

"He had a claim to the throne!" exclaimed the head of roads.

"We're all next," breathed the head of international affairs.

Gaius rolled his eyes at them, but said nothing.

With that, the councillors broke out into a cacophonous orchestra of wailing terror. They all clamored to be heard and to make their concerns known to the king, because surely they had something of value to tell him. Or perhaps he could shed light on the rumors that filled their heads. Was the corpse a long-lost sibling? Was a snake found at its feet? Was it the first of many deaths? What was the taunt? Who was it for?

"He was the herald of a new age," murmured the head of literature dreamily. All other conversation ground to a halt. The knights stiffened as if they were about to be attacked. Gaius looked nervous, as if he'd rather that the woman stop talking as quickly as possible.

"Begging your pardon, but what the hell are you talking about?" snapped the head of infrastructure.

"No," hissed Gaius, "don't encourage her!"

But there was something in his voice that betrayed a different concern than hearing more foolishness.

The head of literature shrugged with an easy smile and went back to doodling on some paper. Leon glanced at Arthur, curious to see what he thought. Arthur stared at the opposite end of the table at the councillor with her head in the clouds.

"What makes you say that?" he asked, his voice betraying nothing.

"Oh, he just has that feel about him. Like he was carrying change.”

“He’s dead, Lady Edgeworth. He wasn’t carrying anything.”

“Well, he was.”

Arthur’s thoughts twitched to the note which only ‘magic sensitive’ people could read. What if the sorcerors hadn’t told him everything? What if they were deceiving him too, knowing that Camelot falling would be to their advantage? Were they really like every other sorceror he’d met?

He found himself wishing they weren’t, which didn’t make sense at all. He didn’t know them. He shouldn’t care about them.

“Hmm,” he said at last. “Interesting. Well, we got way off track. To address your concerns, the corpse was killed with a knife, not a snake. He had no ties to Camelot whatsoever.” At this, he looked to Dame Tane for confirmation. She nodded. “And he was not an assassination. He was, actually, a warning, as I said. Whoever is responsible for the army heading here from the Valley of Fallen Kings has grown cocky. They sent a warning of their attack.”

Lord Baven, with his one-eyed, bearded face, raised his hand. Then, without waiting for permission, he asked, “How could he have no ties to Camelot? His corpse was left on our front steps, so to speak.”

Arthur inclined his head to Dame Tane. “Care to explain?”

“Of course.” She stood, more than Arthur’s equal in height. The rest of the council shrunk back as she did. Her war hammer more than enough to inspire healthy caution but her bearing was all the more intimidating. Arthur marvelled silently at how she commanded the attention of the room so naturally.

It was then that the doors swung open with a bang, revealing the duke in the massive doorway.

“A meeting!” he cried, indignant. “And I wasn’t informed!”

“You weren’t meant to be,” Arthur said coldly. “Get out.”

“But a corpse! At the gate! A dead body!” Arthur was tempted to tune out the duke’s hysterical shrieking, but he could miss something. “Whatever was it doing there?”

“It was—“ started the head of peasant affairs, but Arthur cut xem off.

“You’ll be informed with the rest of the citizens. Now get out. This is not the first time you’ve intruded on a closed council meeting.” He rested his hand on his sword in threat. “It will, however, be the last. If I want you to attend, you will be invited. If I do not, you will not enter these chambers. Am I quite clear?”

The duke glanced around the room, his face going an ugly shade of purple. Arthur thought suddenly of a badly done painting in one of the lower halls of a stuffy old man who was a similar shade of mauve.

“But...,” the duke stammered. “But I’m the Duke of Dore...”

“Let me put it to you this way, Armaud.” They had never been so familiar, but Arthur was in no mood to allow the duke a title. “You have tried my patience repeatedly, and I find I have none left to spare you. Comply, or you will spend a night in the dungeons for every minute more in this room than I permit, Duke of Dore or not. Given that your duchy has collapsed, what that is even worth is up for debate. So leave. Or be dragged out."

The blood drained from the duke's face and he fled. The guards posted outside closed the doors softly.

Dame Tane turned to Arthur, a look of impressed surprise gracing her face, and Arthur waved for her to explain.

"The corpse is that of a spy. My spy." The council gave a start; they knew the security council dealt in spies and espionage, but they clearly hadn't given much thought to that fact. "He had no idea he was working for Camelot— I paid his as anyone would pay a mercenary. He had no insignia that linked him to this kingdom nor had he ever lived here. There is absolutely nothing to connect him to Camelot."

"And yet—!" Lord Baven interjected.

"And yet he ended up at our front door. Yes, Lord Baven, I am well aware of the circumstance," Dame Tane finished wryly. Arthur caught Gwaine smirking and struggled to contain his own smile. "My point is that there is no way for anyone to realize he was working for Camelot unless someone inside the court knew. All of you knew. And so every one of you are under suspicion."

She nodded to Arthur, handing the show to him. "To be clear, all of you are under suspicion for treason, accessory to murder, and conspiracy. I or one of the knights will meet with all of you over the next few days. If you leave the city, I will know and I will hunt you down. You swore an oath as my council, and I will see you honor it."

The council shrunk back into their chairs.

"Sire, if I may." Gaius straightened and Arthur could hear as every bone in his spine moved back into place. “We have the results of the autopsy. Would you care to hear them? It serves only to prove your point.”

“Go on.”

“The cuts on the corpse’s neck were made with a very sharp knife that left no chance for a struggle. It’s also important to note that there are two cuts in fact: one cutting each major artery in the neck.” Gaius scanned the faces of the council members. “The murderer knew what they were doing and undoubtedly had experience in their field. So, whoever among you is a traitor has access to contract killers, a bloody blemish on your reputation indeed.”

“Mind, all of you,” said Elyan disinterestedly; an act but a good one, “that there is more at stake by doing such things than your life. There’s, of course, the permanent stain on your name and on your family’s name. There is the fact that your children will carry your betrayal with them, perhaps until they die. Your life will end and nothing will follow you, but your actions live until there’s no one to remember them. Mind yourselves.”

Elyan's words bit at Arthur. They weren't directed at him, only said to emphasize the impact that treason had on other people's lives, but he couldn't help but think of Uther and his extermination of magic users. How Morgana had blamed him for that as well, and how Uther's shadow was long enough to darken Arthur's reign, even years after his father's death.

Elyan must have been speaking from experience too, though Tom had never been a traitor or a despot, only a hapless victim of circumstance and trickery. Arthur had seen how sometimes people stared at him and Gwen, as if they still associated them with Tom burning on a pyre. Gwen was familiar enough with most of the staff and citizens that they only remembered her father and his crime when she mentioned him, but Elyan still wasn't well known outside of his knighthood. He was a talented swordsman and a loyal friend, but few people saw him as such outside the knights. He was known best as Tom's son and Gwen's sister, and he was looked upon frequently as inheriting his father's reputation.

Shaking himself and feeling rather silly, Arthur looked over the faces of the council. None of them seemed to feel guilty, only a bit nervous or confused. Either one of them was an undiscovered thespian or none of them were the traitor he was looking for.

He turned his gaze on the knights, intending to call off the intimidation that was getting them nowhere. But each one of them had their own dark looks on their faces, betraying their own memories of families destroyed by one person.

Leon, Arthur knew, had only grown up with his mother. His father had been killed by a sorceror in the Purge while on a raid, and though his mother was the politically deft of the two, she still struggled with people undermining her authority.

Gwaine never talked about his family, though he might have done to Merlin. He looked down at his hands. He'd been oddly silent the whole meeting.

Arthur waved his hand, dismissing the council. While helpful in matters of legislation, they were hardly experienced with war. He needed the knights for that.

'Take a break,' murmured Merlin's ghost. 'Let them think over everything for a bit, and resume later. They're not present, not with how everyone is talking about their families and betrayal and reputation. The knights are proud, and that hit close to home.'

Nodding, Arthur dismissed the knights too, telling them to reconvene at three o'clock, giving them eight hours for other things.

Only Gwaine stayed at the table, though Percival did his best to drag him out. After several moments of silence and Arthur fidgeting with the scarf, ever present in his pocket as a last tangible memory of Merlin, Gwaine made eye contact.

"Everything's gone to hell," he said quietly.

"Hmm?"

"Since Merlin disappeared. It's like he kept everything in order here. Since he disappeared, everything has been getting worse and worse." Gwaine stood up and paced behind his chair. "One thing after another! Merlin disappears and that very day, a fire breaks out in the marketplace. The sorceror appears, and he dies quickly. Then we have a couple months of nothing but desperate searching that turns up nothing and just sucks the life out of everything and everyone. Then a duchy collapses, an army appears, and we're saddled with a duke who feels entitled to knowing our every move. The sorceror— who isn't dead and has some other thing going on that only gets solved if he kills you— comes back after all this time, and amid all this we have an impending attack and a funeral. And why? It feels like it's because we don't have Merlin around anymore. That since we couldn't keep him safe, we'll suffer the consequences."

Gwaine stopped midstep, glaring unreadably at Arthur.

"Merlin disappearing wasn't our fault," growled Arthur.

"We don't even know what happened to him!" exploded Gwaine. "What if he's still out there, hurt or trying to make it back? What are we doing to find him?"

"NOTHING," Arthur bellowed. "We're not doing anything! We looked for him for months and found nothing. If he's trying to get back, he's had ample time to do so. He's dead, Gwaine, and nothing will get him back!"

"I'd do anything to get him back,” Gwaine hissed venomously. “You wouldn't. You've never seen him as an equal, always telling him he's an idiot or a useless servant. When did you ever tell him he was valued?"

"You don't know what I'd do to see him alive again," Arthur snapped. "You don't know anything about what I said to him. I miss him like hell and I will not stand here as you tell me I did anything else!"

"Listen here, princess," snarled Gwaine, vitriol dripping from the nickname. "Merlin is still alive. He has to be. We're just… missing him, every time we look. We look in the wrong places. Merlin wouldn't just up and vanish. And we'd have to find a body eventually, if he was dead. Just you wait, you useless king, he'll come back." Finally, tears dripped down Gwaine's face. "He has to. Merlin can't die."

His anger drained from him instantly, recognizing his own grief.

"Gwaine, Merlin is dead. And I wish that wasn't true, but there hasn’t been anything that we’ve seen to prove otherwise. There’s nothing else it could be. I'll not begrudge you grieving, but this is unhealthy, if nothing else." Arthur rested a hand on Gwaine's shoulder. "Seeing Merlin everywhere just makes it hurt more. Grasping at the possibility of his return will hurt you more than accepting his death."

"That sounds like you’re speaking from experience."

His hand tightened involuntarily. "It is. A bit. I try not to… think about how his eyes looked like the sky at midday. Or how his horse still stays in the stables and nickers when I walk by. Or how his wisdom did more at meetings than any of the nobles we picked up after my father died, trying to put the pieces back together of Camelot. Or how no other servant will ever talk to me the way he did. How no one will."

Gwaine gave a quiet huff of amusement, muttered something about an epidemic of romance, and sunk into the chair nearest to him, like he'd been fueled by his anger and with that gone there wasn't anything to hold him up.

"Do you still have those dreams?" he asked after a second. "The ones with Merlin in them?"

Stiffly, Arthur nodded. He'd tried to not talk about them after Gaius had asked for a funeral, but Gwaine probably hadn't picked up on that, being Gwaine. Also, after what had happened in the most recent one… continuing his silence was preferable to reliving it.

“You’re not pulling my leg, right Princess?” At Arthur’s second awkward nod, Gwaine’s face split into a wide, almost manic grin. “Then he’s alive!”

Arthur sighed. “I’m afraid I’m not so sure. He dies in almost every one of them, and the one he didn’t...” He trailed off, thinking of the dream he’d had the night after they captured the sorceror. How the sorceror had sat in that cell until Merlin had emerged like a snake shedding its skin. How the sorceror had covered his face with terror as Arthur came closer and it melted off into… Merlin.

Was the sorceror to blame for it all? The dreams had started after the execution which had since been proven to be a sham, but he’d just thought the timing was linked to Merlin’s disappearance. He may have said that he didn’t intend any harm, but when had sorcerors ever been truthful? The old man— Dragoon, wasn’t it?— had certainly lied about healing Arthur’s father, and he’d no reason to do so, no vendetta against Arthur. Then again, if it was the sorceror masquerading as Merlin every time, why would he consistently put himself in such pain? No, it was just Arthur’s mind, playing tricks on itself.

“Arthur?” Gwaine prompted. “Anybody in there? Are you alright?”

“I was just thinking about—"

“Merlin? And your dreams? And how we can use them to find him?”

"No, Gwaine." He shoved his way around Gwaine, who'd stood up. “I have other things I need to do, and I don’t want to talk about my nightmares right now.”

Gwaine pushed him backwards, regaining the angry glint in his eyes. “Fine, Arthur. If you don’t want to talk about how Merlin is definitely alive and trying to communicate with you, fine. But let’s call a spade a spade. You care about Merlin, and a hell of a lot more than one would a friend. This is usually when someone comes to the conclusion of ‘oh, I’m in love’ but since you’re dumb as a box of rocks, I’ll help you along. That whole thing about Merlin and waxing poetic about his eyes? Exhibit A of being a lovestruck fool. You hear me? Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“For god’s sake, Gwaine!” Arthur knocked Gwaine’s hand away and edged around him. “Merlin’s dead! I’m not in love with someone who’s dead!”

“You were definitely head over heels before he disappeared.”

“I was _not—_ Look, even if I was, it doesn’t matter now. Okay? It doesn’t matter. Because I’ll never see him again except for when I dream, and it’s not even him! Everytime I see him there, his death hurts all over again.” Arthur crossed his arms. “I don’t want to think about this.”

As Arthur hurried from the council chambers, he heard Gwaine call, “You dream about him, you numbskull!”

—

Arthur sat in an alcove near the top of one of the narrower towers. Before he'd met Merlin, when Morgana was still wonderful, before Gwen would look him in the eyes or use his name, when the closest person he could call a friend was Leon, Arthur would hide in the same alcove. It had a kind of privacy that his room didn't, likely because no one associated it with him. His room was well known and anyone could find it. But the alcove was just another feature of the castle, with no one it belonged to.

True, it really belonged to him now that he was king, but the whole castle did.

Still, the alcove was quiet, rarely visited, and could be counted on as a good hiding place. Not that Arthur was hiding. Kings didn't hide, just as they didn't catch butterflies or cry when their dogs died.

He thumbed through the papers he'd kept with him after escaping Gwaine, though there wasn’t anything new. Just records upon records of his conversations with Dame Tane about the army and notes on the councillors. None of them were great candidates for treason; their power was largely dependent on their position in the council— no resources were at their disposal that made them useful beyond their education. They were all younger children of merchants or second cousins of middle-ranked nobles who would be left with next to nothing to inherit when their other family members died. But their seats on Arthur’s council ensured an income and a measure of luxury, something that wouldn’t be guaranteed if Camelot fell.

He realized after a while that he’d been reading the same paragraph for almost a quarter of an hour.

Sighing, he leaned back into the wall and hugged his knees to his chest. He wished he could go back to being a child, with minimal responsibilities and no grief to speak of. True, that had only been because he didn’t know enough to realize how not having a mother changed the way people looked at him, but he hadn’t lost Merlin or Morgana, however lost her betrayal counted as.

But at such a young age, he hadn’t met Merlin either, and he didn’t have the power to help the people of Camelot. Uther’s laws weren’t really fair to magic users no matter what he said. After being crowned king, Arthur was in a position, for the first time of his life, to change them. He couldn’t justify avoiding that.

He closed his eyes, trying to imagine a world where Morgana hadn’t been trapped by her fear of Uther’s laws and her hate hadn’t slowly boiled over. A world where… Merlin was still alive…

Arthur jolted awake as something hit the side of his calf and someone gave a startled “oh!” and tripped. It took him a second to register the sorceror splayed out in the narrow hallway, his cane skittering away from him. He grimaced and pushed himself up on his elbows, his sleeve halfway up his forearm. The burns marring his arm didn’t look like they’d healed much more than when Arthur had seen them eight months ago.

The sorceror turned to look at Arthur, chastisement on the tip of his tongue, but it fell away as he recognized who he’d just tripped over.

“Oh, I was looking for you.” He muttered something else that sounded like “maybe it’s good for something” but didn’t make an effort to be louder. “I read your law.”

‘Arthur,’ said Merlin’s ghost, ‘don’t do anything stupid if he says something you don’t like.’

Ignoring Merlin’s ghost, Arthur pulled his legs out from under the sorceror gingerly. He tucked them close to his chest before thinking that it was another thing kings didn’t do and sitting cross-legged. “You did? What did you think?”

“Good! Really good. I’m pr— I thought it was good.” There was something he wasn’t saying, something almost tangible, but Arthur couldn’t think of what it was. “I have a few suggestions though. First, I think we gotta have some sort of protection for kids with magic. Er, I mean, I think you need to have that. You remember what I said this morning, about magic sensitive people? I’ve had magic since before I could walk. There’s nothing about me that doesn’t have its roots in magic. But not only was I in a single parent household, my magic endangered me constantly. Children are not corrupted by their births with magic, though admittedly I haven’t met anyone born like I was. Still, people are born with magic all the time. This law should protect them from vigilante justice. It’s practically useless without it.”

“Well,” objected Arthur. “That’s a little harsh.”

‘No, it isn’t,’ grumbled Merlin’s ghost. ‘It’s honest.’

Simultaneously, the sorceror replied, “It’s honest. Also, an education system focused on people with magic would be a good idea. They need to be taught—“

“That goes a bit too far.” The sorceror’s face fell, confused and wary. “Protection is reasonable, but teaching people magic if they don’t already have it is too far.”

Merlin’s voice piped up indignantly. ‘Hey, hey, hey. Don’t be rude. Polite is good. You’re a king, not a toddler. Compassion over paranoia, remember? It applied to refugees, why not to magic users?’

“You’re missing the point! Not only should anyone have the option to study it, just like any other field, but education can help control magic. It can be helpful and decrease the danger to other people.” He pushed up into a sitting position, sweat slowly dripping down his face. He looked like he had a foot already in the grave. “M— my friend, Ana, got her gifts in early adulthood. She was so scared of persecution and death that she expected her own family to turn her in. She thought her sibling would condemn her to death. So it’s a little unfair to deny everyone like her and myself a setting where we can learn to control our power or feel safe.”

“But what if—?”

‘But nothing, Arthur! Caution is all well and good, but taking care of children is so much more important.’ There was almost a pleading tone to the voice of Merlin’s ghost. ‘Never endanger children, no matter what. Who cares if there’s a chance one in a hundred people will want to twist what you teach them, you’ll protect the other ninety nine!’

"But what about the ones who endanger each other?"

"Sorry, what?" The sorceror looked wrong-footed.

'Then you'll teach them to protect themselves! Your entire argument is based on fear, Arthur. You can't make it work.'

“Your majesty?” the sorceror prods. “You alright? Your brain still in your skull?”

"I'm fine! Fine." Arthur rolled his shoulders. "Really I'm fine."

'That's convincing,' snarked Merlin's ghost.

"That's convincing," scoffed the sorceror in the same tone.

"Honestly, there's nothing wrong. The bo—" He cut himself off, realizing it might not be a great idea to admit to Merlin's ghost haunting him. "I'm fine."

They sat across the narrow hall from each other in silence. The sorceror hid his scarred forearm almost subconsciously, as if he'd been doing it so long he'd forgotten that he did it. With his other hand, he hid his face and tried not to look Arthur in the eye, perhaps trying to conceal his scar.

Arthur decided to not to stare too much, in order to afford the sorceror some comfort.

"M— Ana says you carried me," the sorceror said, almost hopefully. Arthur couldn't even begin to know why.

"Yes, I did."

"Why?"

Arthur winced. He hated hearing the confusion and fear in the sorceror's voice, no matter that the man's very existence was against the law.

“Because Ana was going to end up dragging you on the ground. And getting you more injured than you already were would have been—“

“Kind of shitty?”

“Yes. Kind of shitty.”

They both tried not to snicker but failed and exploded into gales of laughter, their shoulders shuddering as they cackled. Arthur, without thinking of it, grabbed onto the sorceror’s upper arms to steady himself as he choked on his mirth. The sorceror jerked back violently, yanking his arms away. It took Arthur a second to realize he was laughing alone.

'Now look what you've done. You were both having a perfectly nice conversation and you crossed the one line you'd steered clear of before. You should say sorry.' Merlin's voice was so vivid Arthur could almost feel him clipping him on the back of the head.

"Sorry," he grumbled.

The sorceror didn't look all that reassured.

"Have you been replaced by someone else?" He tucked his knees close to his chest. He still looked uncomfortable, but there was a glint of humor in his eyes. "I never knew you to— that is, I never thought you apologized to anyone."

"I'd apologize to Merlin, if I ever had the chance."

'Well, you can apologize now,' said Merlin's ghost. 'I'm right here, after all.'

"No, not you," Arthur muttered. The sorceror twitched nervously.

"What do you mean by that?"

Arthur opened and closed his mouth a few times like a dying fish and looked away, embarrassed. They sat in silence for a few more minutes.

"Do you know anything about ghosts?"

The sorceror bobbed his head. "Dead people, typically brought back either because of a vendetta or magic, or both. Different than spirits, which have never existed as anything else. There are other things that get wrapped up in that definition since it's a broad one, like the wraith you fought a few years ago and your— well, it's a suitable definition for the most part. Why? Are you being haunted?" he singsonged.

"Yes." The certainty felt misplaced, given how he'd questioned his sanity on the very topic. “Or… maybe? Out of every explanation I can give, it’s the only one that doesn’t make me feel insane.”

The sorceror seemed to consider this for a moment, tipping his head this way and that as if sliding the statement around in his noggin. “I’ll have to think on that. Who’s haunting you, do you think?”

“Oh, take a wild guess.”

He inhaled sharply. “Merlin.”

The sorceror’s face turned into something sour, looking distinctly like a puzzle in his head was misshapen and the pieces didn’t fit together. Or perhaps that there was too much information rather than too little and it was flooding his brain like blood on a parapet. “Interesting.” He stood up shakily, leaning on the wall and reaching for his cane at the same time. Arthur handed it to him without a thought, except that he wished the sorceror would stay a bit longer to talk about… about everything.

But the sorceror left, and Arthur let him get as far as the top of the stairwell before Arthur decided to chase after him.

Arthur followed him through the halls, mulling over everything that had happened over the course of the day. Somewhere along the way, he lost track of the sorceror but continued on his dogged shadowing all the same. If the attack was imminent, the funeral might have to wait. Then again, he’d waited quite long enough. He could speed it up, but there was always the chance that the army would attack then anyway, and he didn’t want to mess up the funeral by rushing it’s planning. Merlin deserved a good send off.

He’d deserved a good life, too.

An image of Merlin sinking into blood, tears soaking his face, surfaced cruelly in Arthur’s mind. Suddenly, he felt frozen in place, just as he had in the dream. He could barely shake the feeling that he was still there, trapped on the parapet and helpless to save Merlin. If the blood fell on his face, what would it feel like? Would his face freeze too, and trap his tears inside his eyes? What had happened to Merlin, as he’d been buried by the blood?

Or had the gold protected him?

He managed to look up from the floor, though it was a struggle. And yet there was Merlin, gold in his eyes again.

No, wait.

No, it was the sorceror, his eyes glowing as he talked to Ana. When had he met up with Ana? They both seemed to be talking to another person, though Arthur couldn’t see who. He almost wanted to listen to their conversation, maybe figure out who they were talking to, but he couldn’t justify that to himself. It would be rude, if nothing else, and the pair of sorcerors hadn’t really done anything to betray his trust, so perhaps he could just leave them alone.

“Morgana, you are quickly running out of favors,” said the voice that didn’t belong to either of the sorcerors.

Arthur whipped around, pressing himself to the wall. He hadn’t heard her name in casual address for years, and now a sorceror who had every motivation to kill Arthur was tossing it around in casual conversation. He edged closer to get a better view.

“Be that as it may,” replied Ana— Morgana?— patiently, “but this is for the Lord Emrys. Not for myself. This is for his health and his safety. You know the King,” the word had a weight behind it that set it above a run of the mill monarch, “will put him to death.”

“Then why hasn’t he?” retorted the voice. “I perhaps know the prophecy better than the two of you, even with your personal involvement. The King will restore magic to the land, Emrys at his side. He will unite Albion, and it will be a golden age.”

“For the love the Goddess,” Ana scoffed. “Prophecies aren’t certain, and anyone who believes in them with such certainty is an idiot. I’ve read through countless prophecies, the majority of which faded into obscurity after they were never fulfilled. As I said, the connection between Emrys and the Once and Future king is a liability and a weight on his mental health, which is strained as it is, what with nine months of fear and the curse. Severing the bond will be beneficial.”

The ‘bond?’ What bond? And was the sorceror really Emrys? Arthur had heard the name, of course, but he’d imagined a ferocious old man with unimaginable power, perhaps someone who’d tried to kill his father. Not a scrawny, cursed man with more scars than skin.

"Excuse me," croaked the sorceror, who was looking worse every second, "but all this can be debated at a later date. For now, I want to clear up one thing and one thing only. Can you get myself and Morgana out of Camelot in five days or not?"

Five days? Why five days? That would fall on the day after a funeral, but the sorceror had said he didn't know Merlin. Then again, if his friend was Morgana, he could be hiding anything.

"Yes," the voice conceded. "Though I don't know what's so important about this funeral. It's just some servant, isn't it?"

Fury burned behind Morgana's face, a familiar sight indeed, but the sorceror just looked rather resigned. He had to have known Merlin, to act in such a way. So he had lied about that, too. How many secrets were buried in his mind, what with the years he lived in Camelot and the company he kept?

"Your opinion of the dead is unimportant," snapped almost-certainly-Morgana. "Just know that this is when we want to leave, and we will discuss the bond once again when we are in your company."

"Very well, Morgana," said the voice. "Emrys, we are always happy to be of service to you, and wish you well."

The gold vanished from the sorceror's eyes, and he crumpled a bit before his cane and Morgana pulled him back up. Even from several yards away, Arthur could see the bags under the sorceror's eyes. The magic he was doing was too much for him, too much if he wanted to survive much longer. Even Arthur could tell that. He remembered how Morgana had scolded the sorceror for trying to stand up and realized that this was why. For all his power, he was too tired to live through much more use of it.

"You're sure you want to leave then? Why not earlier?" Morgana's words were soft and concerned, too close to childhood for comfort.

"Yes, Morgana, I'm sure. Even though we're going our irrevocably separate ways, you know I need to keep him sane through the funeral." The sorceror didn't specify who he was talking about and Morgana didn't ask. Clearly, they both knew without having to confirm. So they'd probably talked about 'him' a great deal over however long they'd known each other. "He's already gone through everything I can think I might need to help him through, except for the funeral. After that, it's better for everyone if I disappear and never come back. Who would want to see me now, with what I've become? No one, excluding you, knows me as I am now. And I don't..." He wiped his face and tried to make himself taller. Arthur recognized that; he'd done it himself so many times. "I can't live through them seeing me."

Morgana nodded. Arthur almost wondered about how he'd laid his own curse on her, but he didn't need to wonder long.

Guiding the sorceror down the hall away from Arthur, she asked, "What about the army? That note was pretty clear about the fact that Camelot would be under attack soon. And I may not like the people, but Camelot is still where I grew up. It's still dear to me."

"Oh, I don't know." They walked in silence for a few moments more before the sorceror continued. "I guess I'll just wipe them out when we leave. I have plenty of time to recover, and I've done more before. It won't take too much effort."

Arthur didn't think the sorceror would be able to recover at all, but he wasn't about to reveal himself by saying so.

But Morgana said nothing to contradict the sorceror— should Arthur be calling him Emrys, or had he chosen not to give that name for a reason?— and he thought on the rest of the sorceror's decision a bit more.

Hadn't Dame Tane said that there were at least eight _thousand soldiers_ in the army?

Was the sorceror really so powerful as to speak that cavalierly about killing that many people?

Shaken, Arthur scurried back to his room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This will be finished later as I am in a rush, but hey! Look at everything! I'm happy with this!
> 
> Thank you to @wolvaraash for being my wonderful beta! Your encouragement and comments are amazing.
> 
> Please tell me what you think about all this


	22. The Gathering Clouds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana.exe has stopped responding

The traveler and Morgana strode through the halls, both silent as they rolled the conversation with Malleum the druid over in their minds. Of the two of them, only Morgana had met face to face with Malleum before, and, according to her, they were always considered to be a bit of an unknown variable by the rest of the magical community. Still, if they were willing to help get the two of them out of Camelot, it was worth the risk.

At this point, desperation gnawed at the traveler's stomach. There were so many things he hadn't answered, but he didn't need to if he fled Camelot in five days and never came back. Five days and nothing in Camelot would ever be his problem again.

Why was Arthur hearing his voice? He hadn't cast a spell for that. It would be too cruel.

To that end, when had he started hearing it? Arthur hadn't said. It had to be after the traveler left Camelot the first time, but when?

Still, it wouldn't matter in five days.

"Ana?" he murmured, hoping she'd realize that it was best if the conversation was quiet.

"Hmm?" She had obviously taken the hint.

The traveler reached for her hand and she gave it, squeezing reassuringly. "Do you want your magic back? I know you grieved its loss… but do you want it back?"

She sighed sadly in reply. "Of course, my friend. What kind of question is that?"

"Right, of course. Sorry."

"Don't be. To be completely honest," she exhaled heavily, massaging her forehead. She gave the traveler a tense smile and stared straight ahead. "I appreciate the fresh start that came with losing it. No one can find me out for something I don't have. And no one can link me back to everything I did, thank the stars above. Except you, of course. And even though I'd normally advocate finding the person responsible for doing what I did— if it was to my own kin, that is— I don't want to see Gwen look at me like she did every time I let her down. Your glamour has let me live a life away from all the pain I caused, and I'm eternally grateful for that. If I get my magic back, I don't know what'll happen. I don't want to sacrifice a second chance for my magic, however much I resent the lack of it."

They stopped at a stairwell, wondering where they wanted to go.

"I think we're near the kitchens," said the traveler. "Want to go steal some bread from Morge? Because I sure do."

"And how exactly will we do that? You're in no shape to sneak around the kitchen."

"No, but you are, and I can set a chicken loose or something."

Morgana shook her head fondly, saying something that sounded like "you'll kill yourself before we even leave if you keep using magic like this." The traveler didn't pursue it and pretended to not have heard it. "Fine, I'll do it. But watch the magic, or I'm dragging you back to bed."

As they carefully edged down the steps, Morgana continued her hushed confession. "Really, I wish I hadn't done most of the crap I pulled."

"'Crap you pulled?' You waged war on Camelot, multiple times, and embedded a spy in her court. This isn't just a child's prank that you 'pulled' as you say, these are multiple crimes that you could be executed for." The traveler rubbed at his eyes, still tired. "At least you regret it."

"Well, I wish I'd killed Uther earlier. That would have solved everyone's problems. But other than that, I wish I hadn't done any of it."

"Why?"

"Because if I ever see Gwen again without this mask you gave me, she'll be repulsed by me." Morgana's voice broke. "I never want to see the disgust on her face that I saw when I tried to take over Camelot again. She hates me. I don't want her to. I want her to look at me like I know I look at her. But she won't unless I never come clean with her." She cleared her throat and her face of tears. "Which, don't get me wrong, I can do. But I don't think I'd like it very much."

The traveler didn't respond for a second. "You only wish you hadn't done things so that Gwen wouldn't hate you?"

"No! No, of course not." She helped him around a step with a chunk taken out of it. The traveler remembered how it'd gotten it. It had been in one of Morgana's attacks. "I regret hurting you and Gwen. But… Well, I still think that I could run Camelot as a more merciful kingdom than it is now. If I'd killed Uther years ago, I could have molded the kingdom and freed people like us. I know how much Arthur means to you, but let's face the facts. His law is for political safety, not because he's changed his mind about magic. Unless he's shown you otherwise?"

The conversation in the alcove flashed through the traveler's mind. Arthur still was on edge about magic certainly, but did he hate it?

Yes, probably. His law merely granted sorcerors and other people with magical affinities the right to live as anyone else, the very basic levels of human dignity and civil rights. They would no longer be persecuted, true, but had Arthur given any sign of actually wanting to value magic or encourage it? He most certainly had not.

"Exactly!" crowed Morgana, taking his silence as what it was— admitting that Arthur hadn't changed his mind at all. "I'd do the sorcerors of this kingdom justice, at long fucking last. He's shown that he won't, at least not as a personal belief."

"I hear you," he interjected softly, "but frankly, I don't care if he's changed his mind on that. At least he won't kill anyone for using magic now. That's good enough right now. And it means he won't foster the fear that kills people like us in the younger people."

She scoffed. "Arthur might not try to teach fear, but he won't be teaching kindness either."

They both subsided and focused on inching their way down the stairs. Morgana seemed to be stewing in something, but the traveler didn't try to ask what. Stepping in the right spot took enough out of him, he didn't need the added stress of arguing with her.

The traveler broke the spell first.

"If you had a choice, would you want your magic back or Gwen to forgive you?"

Without hesitation, she replied, "Gwen to forgive me."

"Why do you always pick the one thing that's infinitely more difficult?"

"You know I've always been one for confrontation."

The traveler snorted. "That's certainly true. How you manage to survive with all the fights you pick, I'll never know." A thought tickled the traveler's brain and he stopped on the stairs, pulling Morgana around to look at him. "I remember you said that the man who took your magic away, the duke we met, used something he'd put his magic into to steal yours. Right? So if we can find that device that you mentioned, maybe we can turn it on him and give you your magic back. Sure, it's not exactly getting Gwen to see past everything you've done, but it's several steps forward to you being as you once were. What can you tell me about the device?"

With barely a moment of thoughtful hesitation, Morgana launched into her description.

"It's a box, or it looks like one. I don't think it can actually hold anything, because as far as I know it doesn't store magic, just transfer it." She helped him down to the next stair and kept talking. "I'd say it's about… six inches on a side? There are two manacles— cold iron; they disable trying to use your magic while the draining happens— and one goes on each participant's hand. I didn't meet him as the Duke of Dore, but he told me it had a magical core inside. When the box is being used, it glows green."

"Alright." The traveler looked at her sharply. "Wait, you didn't meet him as the Duke of Dore? What was he calling himself?"

"Dennis, I think. We didn't use names much, and his wasn't very memorable in the first place." She was quiet for a few seconds more before asking, "If I get my magic back, do you think all the prophetic dreams will come back too?"

They were nearly at the kitchens now and stopped a few steps from the bottom of the stairwell. The traveler leaned on his cane, trying to see around the corner into the streaming room. He was knocked backward by someone carrying a box, and fell on his behind on the stairs.

"Sorry, sir!" The traveler looked up to see Seta hovering over him with concern, a ragged tabby cat on his heels. "Oh! You! You're back!"

"Yes, Seta, yes I am. How have you been? You certainly look like you've grown, if I do say so myself. And is this Timothy?" Even from the stairs, the traveler could reach the cat to scratch its chin. It purred contentedly. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure. Did you let him into the kitchens like I suggested?"

Seta grinned. "Yeah. Cook was screaming like there was a murderer in the kitchen. Some of the knights even came down. Sir Gwaine was there, of all people! He started laughing at her and Cook hit him with a roll of butcher paper as soon as Timothy got out."

"You know this kid?" said Morgana stonily, her face betraying nothing.

"Yes," the traveler replied carefully. "What about it?"

"Nothing. What are you carrying, Seta?"

"Oh, just something I made. There are some boys— squires, some of them, others are merchants sons— who've been acting obnoxious and I'm going to go teach them a lesson using this." He plucked a cylindrical object out of the box and waved it, looking pleased with himself. "It's a noise maker. There are five settings— see here?— bear, cat, horse, dog, and 'angry man.' I don't know how accurate it is yet; I can pick out every part of the noise maker that I put together to make each noise and I don't think it'll sound realistic to me no matter how good it really is."

Morgana nodded vacantly, distant fear buried in her eyes. The traveler, still stroking Timothy, peered at the noisemaker in awe. "How does it work?"

"Well, there's five things that rotate into place depending on how you turn this dial, and they work kind of like a music box. But instead of just metal or something, there are different materials in it to make it sound like things." Seta was positively beaming as he continued his explanation, using grand gestures and pointing to different parts of the noisemaker as he went on. Morgana looked positively terrified the longer he spoke, but the traveler, enraptured, continued engaging Seta and his invention, and was not paying attention to her. "…and that's how I made it sound like my dad! I think the 'angry man' setting is definitely the scariest, but we'll see!"

"Find me when you're going to put it into practice. I'd love to see it in action."

"Will do! I gotta go test it now, see you around!"

Seta put the cylinder back in the box and bounded up the stairs, Timothy close behind. He left the traveler and Morgana in the stairwell. Staring at something in the distance, Morgana offered a hand to help the sorceror up. He'd sat on the stairs for their conversation with Seta, both because it seemed like too much effort to get up and because he didn't have to worry about the stability of his legs if he wasn't using them. Gratefully, he pulled himself up.

"He's brilliant, Ana. Really. He made a self-driving carriage when he was nine or something."

"That's great," she replied vacantly. "Great."

The traveler watched her face carefully. Her eyes were wide with horror and her mouth was nearly slack like a corpse. Her arms hung at her side though a few errant fingers were still in the traveler's hand.

"Ana?"

She hummed distantly.

"Are you alright?"

Morgana only hummed again.

"Okay, I'll take that as a 'no.' Let's go back to the room, alright? Just follow me and I'll get you back."

This ended up being a rather taller order than the traveler was really capable of delivering. He managed to pull Morgana through the halls to the tower their room was in and up a few stairs, just barely, but was heaving for breath by that point. Fortunately, Morgana's wits returned to her, so she was able to lug him up the rest of the stairs. She still wouldn't talk, but at least it was clear that she saw the ground in front of her.

As soon as they were back behind the door of their room, they plopped down on the mattress. Without allowing a single pause, the traveler demanded, "What the hell happened to you? What shocked you into that emptiness?"

"The boy."

"Seta?"

"Yes, Seta. The boy. With his clever little gadget. That's what did that."

The traveler shook his head. "I don't understand. I've only seen you react like this when you lost your magic or when you saw the duke."

"Yes, my friend, and that's the thing!" She shot to her feet and began to walk in circles. "That little fucking cylinder with the genius mechanisms whirring inside. There's nothing else that I've ever seen like it. Nothing, except for Dennis' fucking cursed cube."

"So, what? What are you suggesting?"

"I'm not sure, my friend. But I know one thing." She halted, lurching violently. "We have a fucking problem on our hands."

ー

Morgana, after another half an hour of less dire chatter, announced that she was going to bed. It was hardly nine in the morning, but she still wasn't feeling much better after avoiding the 'issue,' as she'd coyly called it. Not to mention that she hadn't been sleeping well anyway, what with her part-time job as a guardian against the traveler's persistent nightmares.

The traveler wove through the hallways of the second floor of the castle, looked suspiciously at stairs whenever he came across them, and tried to think of something to do. How, he wondered as he wandered, was his voice haunting Arthur? It wasn't a ghost, after all. His identity was dead, but his body was not. Was Arthur going mad? Was that what had happened after the traveler's disappearance? It was a possibility that the traveler didn't want to entertain. If Arthur really had gone insane, then not only would he and the rest of Camelot be in more danger than ever but Arthur ran the risk of growing to be his father all over again. Possibly with a second Purge on the horizon. All it took was a catalyst, and if it was going to happen in the near future, the funeral would be it.

But magic had already been nearly wiped off the face of the planet. Who would Arthur blame this time around? Who would be the new victim of Camelot's moral panic?

Women wearing makeup? Everyone with brown eyes?

The traveler shook his head, morbidly amazed at the arbitrary persecution. Sorcerors actually appeared more frequently than redheads. They all had a predisposition to it, some inherent ability to master magic. People like Arthur would never be able to do so themselves, so magic couldn't just be a skill to be picked up. That made sense. It had to make sense.

If it made sense, he could convince Arthur, mad or not.

Not that it would matter in five days.

The traveler sighed softly, relieved by the reminder that he'd be free from Arthur's influence in less than a week. Something in his chest twinged at that idea, but he brushed it off as a less severe attack.

He had to get out after Arthur laid Merlin's ghost to rest. Staying any longer would trap him, and he couldn't bear to stay where Arthur distrusted him, Gwaine hated him, Lancelot didn't recognize him, and Gaius treated like a stranger. Morgana was the only person who knew him. It would only hurt to be known by his old friends, and they'd probably try to keep him there. He couldn't stay. Not any longer. It was awful and nerve-wracking. The traveler just couldn't bear any more time around them.

Air was strangled in his throat, his hands shook, and his legs gave out a second later.

Maybe he could go somewhere to clear his head, do something to calm him down.

Or he could solve a problem that he'd been pondering for a few hours, and find out what was leaving the voice of… 'Merlin' behind in Arthur's head. He'd always liked being surrounded by books, whether in Gaius' workplace or Geoffrey's library. But he couldn't go to Gaius. Gaius, unlike nearly everyone else in the castle, was smart enough to piece everything together without prompting. He also had all the information to do so, an advantage no one else had.

To Geoffrey's library it was, then.

He was hardly a city block away from the library, but to get there he needed to go up stairs, and it already felt like a mile.

He inched his way over to the nearest stairwell carefully and made liberal use of the wall for support. A memory popped into his head, unbidden, of sleeping by a wall and waiting for Arthur. The worry and the care of the memory, which felt so old but had happened barely two years ago, tainted the present. The traveler shook himself. He wasn't going to wait for Arthur any longer.

Without any further hesitation, the traveler took a deliberate step up the stairs. Then a second, then a third.

"Hmm," he said when he was about halfway to the next floor. "This isn't so bad."

As if to prove a point, the curse kicked into high gear and the traveler promptly lost all feeling below the knee. Above it, however, felt suspiciously like being burned. No… worse than that. It felt like it was being cauterized. He fell backwards and only kept himself up by clinging to the railing.

Nimueh and her fireball burned their way to the forefront of his mind, the familiar blistering pain forcing all rational thought from his brain. He screamed, trying to hold his leg and assuage the pain to no avail. He tried to open his eyes and look at it properly to assess the damage, but the pain played tricks on him.

"I can't see my legs." The traveler stared, horrified at what he saw as two burnt stubs. "My legs. My legs. Where— what— my legs— my—"

"You alright there, mate?" asked a voice the traveler knew well. He couldn't process its concern though or see its source, and could only worry about his legs more. "Your legs are there. They haven't gone anywhere. Alright? Here." Gwaine moved down the stairs so he was in view of the traveler. "I'll touch your leg, okay? And you'll know it's there. God, you're a mess." Gwaine lay his hand on the traveler's shin, but it just felt like more fire. He screamed again and Gwaine stumbled down the stairs backward. For a few moments, the traveler continued to gasp and yelp while tears streamed down his face and he grasped at the air as if trying to grab something that would help him.

"Gwaine— Gwaine, oh, thank god— help me, please! I've lost my legs… My legs…"

Gwaine, puzzled at the familiarity, edged closer until he was close enough to pick the traveler up in a fireman's carry. "No, you haven't. Your legs are still intact. I promise."

After a few more minutes of assurances and working to calm the traveler down, his breathing slowed and became more regular. His eyes refocused as he calmed down.

"I— that's worse than it's ever been," the traveler said softly. "I never— it's always clear before and it's never been so _real_ before. That was just… that was…" He looked up at Gwaine and tried to wipe the tears from his eyes. He remembered himself halfway through and glanced away. "I'm sorry I caused you trouble, sir. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have need of the library. Thank you for helping me."

He got to his feet slowly and started to stagger away up the stairs.

"Wait!" Gwaine bounded after him, reaching the same step the traveler took a minute to reach in mere seconds. "Wait. You're going to the library? You hardly look like you're in any shape to do so. I'll help you get there. You know, make sure you don't fall over again."

The traveler, in no mood to argue, shrugged and continued up the stairs. His legs were tired already, but he had to get to the library. He needed answers. And there were only so many places he could find them.

"You're the oddest person I've ever met, you know." Gwaine took the traveler's left arm and slung it over his shoulder. "Well, save Merlin. No, scratch that too. You're tied. But you and Merlin both— you've got your mysteries, haven't you? Since your magic's known, why don't you come clean about everything else, too? Your name? Why you're so driven to go to the library that you endure horrific pain?"

"Well, you just go straight from small talk to trauma, don't you?"

Gwaine barked with laughter. "I suppose I do. And you just avoid the question, don't you?"

The traveler snorted in reply. "Habit."

"Ah, a man after my own heart. When we get to the library, what are we looking for?"

The two of them stopped at a landing, a flight or two below the floor the library was on, by the traveler's estimate. He took his arm back from Gwaine and leaned more heavily on his cane, as far away as possible from the knight who didn't recognize him. The traveler couldn't quite understand why Gwaine was making an effort to help him, but it didn't sit well with him. Maybe he could just persuade Gwaine to leave, instead of answering more questions he didn't want to answer.

"Isn't Arthur holding a meeting? Shouldn't you be there?"

"Nah," scoffed Gwaine. "Had a bit of a falling out with Arthur. Or, I think I might've had. So I'm avoiding the issue until I know where I stand."

Disgruntled, the traveler continued to the next flight. "What did you argue about?"

"Nothing that I'm at liberty to discuss with you. As much as I don't buy into the whole 'state secret' idea and as much as I enjoy making fun of the king, we talked about things that I wouldn't pass on to anyone, much less you, especially given the circumstances." Gwaine gave the traveler a strained smile as if realizing he was trying to be kinder than usual and wasn't doing a very good job of it.

"You still don't trust me," the traveler said. It hurt more than he wanted to admit to himself. Gwaine, one of his oldest friends in Camelot, still didn't trust him. He hadn't expected much from Gwaine, really, particularly with the face he was wearing presently, but Gwaine's blunt suspicion stung. "That's justified. Is there anything you _can_ talk about?"

Gwaine shrugged. "Gossip?"

The traveler shrugged back. "Alright. Gossip sounds good."

The two of them climbed the stairs, the struggle made almost enjoyable by Gwaine's wild stories of the court. Seta featured prominently in several of them, usually as the source of conflict or how some courtier got their comeuppance. In stories he wasn't part of, women, peasants, or younger squires usually got the better of old, grouchy lords. One of the kitchen maids had apparently tricked a lord into giving her his pocket money for the month after getting into a game of dice with him. One of the up-and-coming knights had managed to best one of Uther's favorites, finally giving Arthur an acceptable reason to retire him. By the time they reached the floor the library was on, the traveler was roaring with laughter.

"And she just—" The traveler mimed pulling a helmet dramatically, as Gwaine had done a second before. Gwaine nodded, laughing hysterically. "And Elyan lost to her?"

"Listen, mate," Gwaine managed through bouts of laughter, "she was bloody amazing. She knew what she was doing. Anyone would have lost to her."

"How long ago was this? It's a shame she didn't stick around."

"Oh, a few months. She just came in for the tourney; she never meant to stay longer than that."

"I never meet the cool people," groused the traveler teasingly. "I'm just stuck talking to you."

They made their way slowly to the other side of the castle, and the traveler was relieved that Gwaine could talk to him as long as it wasn't particularly sensitive information. If he could just ensure Gwaine's and the rest of the Knights' happiness after he left, he'd be satisfied with what he'd accomplished in Camelot.

As Gwaine held the door to the library open for the traveler, he asked, "So what exactly are you looking for in here? You still never said."

"I thought you were just going to get me here."

"I said something along those lines, sure, but I'm afraid it's in my nature to be curious." Gwain smiled roguishly. "And I like to help people out. So, what are you hoping to find in here?"

"Well," started the traveler, considering what the next pronouncement could do to Gwaine's faith in his monarch. Being Gwaine, he'd probably brush it off with a joke or something but… calling Arthur's sanity into question could endanger his reign and him. "I'm looking for information on why someone might be…," he grimaced, "hearing the voice of someone dead. Or, for that matter, though completely unrelated to anything actually happening and strictly out of my own, frequently unadvisable and historically silly, curiosity—"

"Spit it out," chided Gwaine, amused.

"—Or… someone alive."

"And you want to know this why?"

The traveler grimaced again. It wasn't a very full grimace; the damage done to his face by the cut through his mouth was more than just a scar. It made it harder to move, though not enough to immobilize his face entirely. It only made his face move crookedly. Morgana liked to call it charming character, but it felt like just another way he'd be incapable of returning to his old self.

"Arthur," he managed, though he wasn't sure how. "Arthur is hearing m— Merlin's voice. I want to know how and why."

Gwaine opened his mouth as if he would ask another question, but the traveler turned away from him to the library, effectively cutting him off.

"And we'll start in the medical section, I think," he announced, marching off into the dusty stacks. The traveler knew exactly where the medical section was, having retrieved volumes from there from time to time, but he took a long while to get there. Geoffery's shelves were in total disarray, something uncharacteristic of him. The traveler glanced towards the main desk of the library every so often, curious what had gotten into the old fogey that he couldn't maintain his book collection.

"How far back is this?" asked Gwaine after a few minutes.

"Not much farther. This is the library, not the labyrinth of Gedref." The traveler laughed softly, marveling at how young and naive he'd been all those years ago. "Don't tell me you've never visited the library before."

"I have!" Gwaine replied indignantly. "But only with Percival, really, and he prefers fiction. I can find the fiction books, if that counts for anything."

"Well, I'm not keeping score of anything. I'd say it counts for something, though I don't know what. Still, I don't think fiction will help me with this particular puzzle, unless that's where Geoffery hid all the historical references to magic." The traveler stopped abruptly in the middle of the aisle, one of the less cluttered ones. Which was about as an important distinction as comparing midnight and twelve AM. "You know, now that I think about it, he may have done just that. Uther certainly wasn't one for romance, and Geoffrey's hatred of destroying knowledge is inversely related to his ability to demonstrate any kind of emotion. So it's quite intense. Hmm. Something to be considered, I suppose."

He could feel Gwaine's gaze boring into his back as he ran his fingers over the spines of the perfect leather-bound books, caressing them like a lover, like he'd held Freya all those years ago, reverently and gentle. The traveler smiled sadly, thinking of the woman he'd promised to run off with. That home by a lake and by mountains would never be his, though, he knew that now. The magic blazing through his veins wouldn't allow it. It wouldn't allow him peace until Albion was united, something that probably wouldn't even happen. He was consigned to restlessness, a curse that would drive him forward, for better or for worse.

"Why are you helping Arthur?" asked Gwaine.

"I'm not."

"It seems like you are. You're solving his problems, after all."

"I'm solving a puzzle that involves him. There's a difference."

"I really don't think there is." When the traveler didn't respond immediately, Gwaine continued. "You're making a choice to put work into figuring out how and why Arthur is being trapped and haunted by his grief. Unless you used magic, Arthur actually _told_ you about this, too. So not only are you solving Arthur's problems, you're acting as his friend. Which doesn't make much sense considering how you told me, in no uncertain terms, that Arthur's death would lift whatever curse you're afflicted with. Yet you have taken no steps to kill him, and have instead been consistently helpful to him, at least in the time since you've been back. All I want to know is why."

Instead of answering, the traveler sidestepped the question a second time. "Would you prefer I didn't? Who else is doing it? Who else knew to look for answers?"

Gwaine lapsed into silence, but not before he muttered, "Merlin would've known to."

The traveler hurried down the aisle, biting his lip.

ー

It took longer than the traveler expected to find books focusing on mental health and any lack thereof. It had been a topic that Uther had been less than concerned with, so all the books on it that Geoffrey's library had to offer on it were left, nigh untouched, in the far back. The traveler happily plopped down on the floor in front of a few stacks of books he'd assembled. Gwaine hovered behind him, unsure of what to do. That was fine. Gwaine wouldn't even know what to look for if the traveler was completely forthcoming with him.

As the traveler started skimming books for anything that might point to hallucinatory voices, Gwaine paced. Every once in a while, he stopped, pivoted towards the traveler, and would cut himself off in the middle of a sentence.

"Can I— Hmm." A few minutes passed, and Gwaine stopped again. "What about— no."

The traveler ignored Gwaine for about a quarter of an hour until he carefully lay a bookmark on the page— it was just as dry and useless as everything else that he'd read so far, but the traveler still held out hope for something new— and slammed the book shut. "Sir Gwaine," he gritted out. "Stop pacing and shut up. If you want to make yourself useful, make sure Geoffrey stays away from this corner."

"I—" Gwaine held up a hand, then dropped it as he dropped his objections. "Okay."

"Thanks."

Left with no more distractions, the traveler turned back to his books. The particular passage he was reading gave some minor details about magical effects on mental health, but not enough to suggest any particular hypothesis. The possibility of a spell had, of course, entered the traveler's mind as a possible cause, but he'd never known any spell that could do so.

He nearly fell asleep as he tried to continue, his brain barely registering what his eyes skimmed across. After three more books and another hour, he stumbled into collected academic essays. Most of the essays ran more towards theory than proven fact, but theories seemed to be the only thing that could be of any use now. Still, the words slid through his mind and out quickly.

But when the words 'glamour,' 'bond,' and 'hallucinatory voices' all appeared very close together, he jolted awake and read the passage over for a second time.

And then a third, and then a fourth, the last time aloud.

"Given the unusual nature of long-term glamours and other spells or curses that affect the perception surrounding a target, it is a common effect that elements of the target's personality will actually be stripped from them. If the target is, by some means or another, bonded to a third party, then that third may be the receptacle of the elements of the soul divorced from the first party. This can, in some instances of particularly strong bonds created by a class 4 sorceror or higher, lead to hallucinatory voices or figures, often identified as 'ghosts.' These are made up of superficial tics or frequently-used phrases. However, as of now, there appear to be no true examples of this, though the magitic theory checks out if the reader will look to the last page for a more technical explanation."

The traveler snorted. If this was the simple explanation, he hated to see what the technical one looked like.

Still, it gave him a good starting point for what might've happened to him and Arthur. He took the essay, including the "magitic theory," whatever that meant, and went to go find Gwaine. It was too bad that going to Gaius would guarantee his discovery, as the physician was probably the only person in the entire castle who would know what "magitic theory" was. Given that knowledge of magic had been incriminating enough on its own for twenty-odd years, there was really no one inside Camelot that the traveler could turn to. 

He found Gwaine hovering in the fiction section, looking between a few romance novels.

"I believe I have everything I need," said the traveler without preamble. "Are you ready to go, or would you like to check out a book?"

"Huh?" Gwaine spun around, his eyes wide, and he shrugged in neutrality. "I'm good to go. Lead on."

The two of them wove through the bookshelves to the door and slid out into the hallway. Gwaine peeled off not too long after, citing a need for some flowers and candles that he insisted had nothing to do with his relationship with Percival, leaving the traveler to wander the fifth-floor hallways.

It was far more peaceful a pastime than almost anything that the traveler had done for nearly a month, but buoyant fear floated in the center of his ribcage all the same. His hands shook and each new noise sent a thrill of nerves up his skin. The traveler tried to smooth himself out by rubbing a thumb up and down the wood of his cane and letting the magic of it touch his own; an almost soul-like energy pulsed from it and washed over him when he let it interface with his magic more intimately. The combat he'd used it in previously had always been strong, vibrant, and an ordeal that kept him strongly rooted in his own body, but walking with it as he would a companion was a far more connected experience. Instead of power that amplified his own, the Sidhe wood's energy intertwined itself with his magic, making the pair dance to an other-worldly duet.

It felt like being with Arthur; walking in the woods with him, advising him, comforting him, being his friend. Their souls had been inextricable. What would the future hold, if the traveler went through with tearing them apart?

As long as Arthur was okay after it, the consequences were irrelevant.

The traveler rounded a corner, still six feet under in thought, and was stopped dead by a reverberating "YOU" and pounding footsteps that caught up quickly to him. He turned slowly, unconcernedly.

"Arthur," he said. "What can I do for you? Not that it's what you're after, but I may have figured out—"

"Shut up and talk," growled Arthur, herding the traveler into an empty antechamber.

"Barring the many worlds interpretation, I don't believe that to be possible."

Arthur threw up his hands, exasperated. "I don't even know what you're talking about half the time. I'm convinced you just make these words up specifically to confuse me."

"Oh, please, your majesty. I don't need to put nearly that much effort into confusing you."

"What's with the attitude today? Usually, you're more… tired."

The traveler waved him off. "Nothing, except that you're exceptionally irritating. It's a natural defense mechanism. What's got you all wound up this fine—" he checked the sky through the window "—late afternoon-ish time?"

Arthur paused briefly, as if debating whether or not to take the traveler seriously. "I overheard you."

The traveler stopped, dumb. "You what?"

"I overheard you. You, your friend, and someone I didn't see." Arthur started to pace. "You called your friend, who you introduced as Ana, 'Morgana.' 'Morgana,' which is also the name of a dangerous sorceress who's conspired against Camelot repeatedly. And they called you Emrys! You, who said you didn't have a name! You do! And it's a name that I've heard before, too!"

Boiling panic overtook the rest of the traveler's chest in terrified bubbles, and he took a step back without meaning to.

"You were eavesdropping?" he choked out. "I expected better of you."

"That's not the point, sorceror! The point is that you've lied to me since arriving here and you willingly consort with my enemies while acting as a friend."

"It's kind of the point," replied the traveler, still dazed. "It was very rude of you and an invasion of privacy, something I expected you to respect."

Arthur waved the air dismissively, as if clearing the air of the traveler's objections. _"Not_ the point. Who the FUCK is Emrys, and why did you say you didn't have a name if everyone but me seems to know it?"

"Okay, hold your horses," the traveler snapped, holding his hands up. His mind raced as he tried to find a lie that would hold for just a few more days, just long enough that Arthur wouldn't discover him while he was still in Camelot. "First, you are not the only person in the world who doesn't know that title. And second, well. There's a lot of layers to it, to the whole name… debacle."

"Explain," Arthur demanded.

"Emrys is not really a name. Or," he amended quickly, "it's more a title than a name. And I said I didn't have a name because I don't. See? Honesty. I've been more than truthful. That title stole my life out from under me. I'm not about to claim it."

Arthur shook his head and the light streaming in through the window rained upon his hair like a golden storm. "I still don't understand."

Sighing, the traveler reached out to pat his king's shoulder but recoiled just before he did. "That's alright. You don't have to."

"But that… that was Morgana," said Arthur, grasping at anything he could comprehend. "It was. The person I couldn't see called her that. And she responded to it."

"I— no. No, it wasn't." It came out more like a question than an assertive statement. He had a damning difficulty lying to Arthur, especially without the defense of idiocy he'd hid behind for so many years. "She was just… named after Uther's ward. You know what people do. They name their kids like that so as to share their namesake's prestige. Unfortunately, my friend, who prefers the name Ana due to this, ended up with the name of a ruthless criminal. Also," and really, this was going too far and had too many parts of the lie, "it's my understanding that she looks nothing at all like your sister."

"Half-sister," corrected Arthur automatically. He barely seemed to register that he'd said it.

"I don't think that distinction matters, with all due respect."

"It does to me," Arthur retorted, his voice soft. "With everything she's done, I— I don't want to disavow her, but it… hurts to think of how close we were when we didn't know about our blood. Especially how she used that blood to try to claim Camelot. She's responsible for the death of so many people, so many good people. So many of my people."

The traveler sank onto a chair in the antechamber to let his legs rest while Arthur still paced the same path over and over and over. He remembered this habit, of course, but it felt different to see it now. As Merlin, a thought that was difficult to stomach, he'd always been in a position to comfort Arthur in this mood. As he was now, though, there was nothing to do. The glamour both tied his hands and set him free to act as he wished.

How sour this paradoxical freedom tasted.

Still pacing, Arthur pointed at the traveler, adjusting the angle of his arm as he walked so he always pointed directing at him. "You said that you could obliterate the army moving on Camelot."

"I did?" Feigning innocence had rarely worked in the past, but it was always worth a shot.

"Yes, you did. I heard you." Arthur dropped his arm. "How is that possible? You don't even look like you could take my knights. You're sick, or something, and I just… Well, I can't picture it. Just how powerful are you?"

"I admit that I have yet to meet my match."

"So what's your plan, then? Just—" Arthur gestured exaggeratedly in what he probably thought doing magic looked like, "—fwoosh?"

"Accounting for your inaccurate perception of my abilities, yes."

Arthur almost threw himself against the wall opposite the traveler and crossed his arms. He muttered something that the traveler didn't quite catch, but he did hear the words "idiot" and "exhaustion."

They stayed like that for a while. The traveler nearly fell asleep in the chair, still tracing the grain of the wood on his staff. Arthur's voice jolted him from the twilight haze of sleep after goodness knew how long, quiet and concerned.

"You never answered my question about your name."

"I told you—"

"It's a title, yes. But what does it mean? If it's a title, what did you do to get that title? Who gave it to you?"

The traveler's grip on his staff tightened. "It… It would be more accurate to say that I inherited it. No one really gave it to me, per se, but most druids I meet know me as Emrys. It's a title of some importance to them."

"Then why not bear it proudly?"

"It's a name of magic, for one. You already know that I lived in Camelot. Imagine what would have happened to me if news of 'Emrys' living here reached the throne. I never wanted to die." The past tense was not lost on Arthur; the traveler could see so in how Arthur winced and pursed his lips. "But also… it ignores the rest of me. I'm more than my magic. I'm skilled in other things. I'm a son and a student and a friend. When I go by Emrys, all that disappears. Not that I'm really holding tight to it now."

Arthur closed his eyes, like he did in council meetings in response to someone trying his patience. "A straight answer would be nice."

"You're not likely to get one from anyone who knows what's going on, in my experience. It helps the drama along."

Arthur pushed off the wall and made his way to the door. "That's to be expected from you, I guess. You've never given me straight answers before. Nor has anyone with magic, it seems. Not even Gaius."

Gaius! Of course!

"Don't tell Gaius any of this!" blurted the traveler. He couldn't stand quickly, but he could get Arthur's attention all the same. "Or don't tell him about my title, at least. Don't tell anyone, please. I beg of you, keep this between us. It's…," he scrambled for an excuse, "it hurts to be known by it. I don't want anyone knowing, if I can help it. Please."

Arthur stared at him, a strange look on his face, for a few seconds before nodding. "I heard you say you're leaving the day after the funeral. After you leave, I may want more information. But I promise not to tell anyone until you're gone."

"Thank you."

The two of them left the antechamber on a paradoxically familiar note and Arthur insisted on walking the traveler back to his room and having him get some rest. Though questions, far too many to answer and remain anonymous, simmered below Arthur's surface, he seemed content with knowing that the traveler would take care of the primary threat to his kingdom and that a few days would pass and leave him with a magicless kingdom once again. Or, as magicless as Camelot, which didn't seem to be very magicless at all. But they'd reached an unspoken agreement through the interrogation, one edging closer to old camaraderie as they went on.

So the traveler buried himself in blankets, Morgana nearby as a constant, and let his subconscious swallow him.

——

The traveler, despite going to bed early, woke late into the morning the next day. Morgana was out and had seemingly cocooned him in blankets before departing, if the way the wool kept his arms close together was any indication. He went back to sleep without another thought, happy to retire to the world of dreams once again. He needed to be prepared, after all, to destroy the army, to protect Camelot, to protect Arthur… 

He jerked back back into consciousness as the door to the bedroom slammed open. Morgana ran to his side and began to shake him.

"Get up, get up! Gwen's back. I want to talk to her before she runs off to any errands." Morgana pulled her hair out of her face and braided it as quickly as she could, almost vibrating. "Will you come with me?"

The traveler jolted at Morgana's voice, barely registering what she'd asked of him before he promised, "Of course."

It was a mere second later that he realized and shot her a sly smile.

After unrolling himself from the blanket cocoon, Morgana and the traveler hurried through the halls, trying to catch Gwen before she began any complicated tasks. Though the traveler still couldn't move quickly without being soon winded, he ignored it and kept up with Morgana.

They at last came to the top of some stairs and saw Gwen at the bottom talking to Arthur.

The traveler gasped for breath and glanced at Morgana who stared down at Gwen and Arthur. Though it became increasingly clear, as the traveler watched how her face softened and she struggled to hide a smile, that Morgana had eyes only for Gwen.

"What do you think they're talking about?" she asked, and after a moment, catapulted herself down the stairs and towards Gwen. "Come on, let's go find out."

The traveler watched, in an uneven split of bemusement and concern, as Morgana did not account for the differences of this stairwell and lurched in all manner of ridiculous directions, righting herself each time with endearing awkwardness that she rarely expressed. A quarter of the way down or so, she turned back, gave the traveler a thumbs up, and beckoned him down the stairs. He sighed and followed cautiously.

"SHE'S NOT COMING?!"

The traveler looked up at Arthur from his careful observation of each stair and saw him rub something red in his right hand with stressed fervor. His other hand kept twitching as if to move towards his head to scrub at his hair, but he contained his successfully. For the most part.

Gwen shrugged, "I don't know Arthur, Hunith believes he's alive! She wouldn't—"

The traveler froze at his mother's name. She wasn't coming? In some ways, that made it easier for him; she knew things the others didn't and she'd be more difficult to hide from. But if Hunith was convinced he wasn't dead, how would that influence what everyone else thought?

Gwen stopped and saw Morgana descending the marble steps quicker than was really advisable, with the traveler not too far behind. Arthur turned as well, just in time to see Morgana trip on the last step and stumble forward… into Gwen's arms.

Even from his position about a third of the way up the stairs, the traveler could see a deep flush overtake Morgana's face as she pulled away clumsily.

"I am so sorry, I never meant— that is I— I'm sorry I ran into you, oh my stars— I didn't mean to impose—"

"Hey, hey," comforted Gwen, her voice steady. "You're fine. I'm just glad you aren't hurt. You should be more careful going down those stairs." She craned her neck around Morgana to look at the traveler and chuckled. "Though maybe not as careful as your friend. You'll be outrun by a tortoise on its back if you follow his example."

"Hey!" objected the traveler performatively. "At least if you take the average speed, it'll be something in the ballpark of reasonable."

"No, but the race with the tortoise will be closer. I'll grant you that."

The traveler laughed. "I'll take that."

"Good, it's all you're getting."

Gwen turned back to Morgana, who she was holding less than an arm's length away, and brushed non-existent dirt off Morgana's shoulder. "You look nice today."

"Are you saying—" began the traveler, trying to hide a smile as Morgana got a slightly dazed look. Gwen caught him before he could finish his sentence with a hasty disclaimer.

"Which is not to say that that's an uncommon occurrence! Or that today is atypical because of that! You just look nice… all the time. And I just have not… seen you for a while and you should know that I think you are always looking… nice." Gwen looked one compliment away from losing her vocal chords and she was blushing up a storm.

Morgana, still looking like she was having a remarkably pleasurable out-of-body experience, managed to croak out, "Thanks, you're— you've got a good face."

"Oh my god," muttered the traveler exasperatedly. He managed to edge his way down the stairs safely and then around Morgana and Gwen to stand next to Arthur. Arthur was still fidgeting with the red thing in his hand, but he kept it on the side opposite the traveler so he couldn't get a good look at it. Leaving Morgana and Gwen to try and sort out their flirting on their own, he pointed at the red item and elbowed Arthur to get his attention. "What's that?"

Startled, Arthur gave a jolt and moved to hide it in his pocket. "It's nothing, just— it's silly. Sentimental."

"Arthur, don't be coy. You're not very good at it." The traveler leaned more heavily on his cane, the pain in his leg making itself known. "It's clearly important to you, if you keep it with you in your pocket."

"How would YOU know?" demanded Arthur.

The traveler belatedly realized his mistake. As Merlin, he would know exactly what quirks Arthur had about things he treasured. As the traveler, though… how could he explain it?

"I do the same thing," he said slowly. "I keep what's important to me close. It only made sense that other people would too."

Arthur sighed and pulled the item out of his pocket, almost reluctantly. Barely holding back a gasp, the traveler recognized it as his old scarf. "This was Merlin's," Arthur explained. "It was left behind when he disappeared. We don't have really anything else from him, just some clothes. So this is just… as close as I'll get to him, I guess. All I'm going to have for him. So I can't stand not having it with me, you know? I wish he was actually standing next to me," the irony was not lost on the traveler, "but this is it. It's how I keep him close, now that he's gone."

"I think I've said this before," said the sorceror, picking his words carefully, "but I'm really sorry that you lost your friend. It sounds like he was really important to you."

Stuffing the cloth back into his pocket, Arthur shrugged. "Thanks. He was. I'd prefer not to talk more on this, though."

"Sure."

The traveler caught Morgana's elbow, just lightly enough to get her attention.

"I'm going to head back to the room to read a bit, okay? Meet me back there whenever you're done. No time pressure." Letting go, he started the long climb up the stairs, tired within seconds. He almost didn't realize Arthur's presence until the king picked him up entirely and carried him back to his room, the two of them holding their silence in an unspoken agreement that it was necessary and indicative of nothing.

A rock could have detected the lie.

——

Morgana joined the traveler in their room an hour or so later, a smile on her face. For once, it wasn't a predatory smile because she'd trapped someone in conversation like a fly in a web, nor was it a concerned smile she gave the traveler when he had an attack and nothing but her voice could calm him down. This smile was a carefree, joyous one that Morgana simply couldn't contain.

"Someone had a nice chat," said the traveler. He let the essay on glamours fall to his chest. "I'm surprised you managed to stop stuttering long enough to tell her she had a good face. Good job on that."

Still smiling, Morgana jabbed her finger at the traveler. "Listen. At least I managed to actually talk to her and tell her that I liked her. You and Arthur just talk about sad things until one of you gets too tired to continue. So at this point, who's really winning at flirting: you, a bisexual too scared to get emotionally intimate with your crush, or me, an awesome lesbian who is communicating explicitly and gets hugs?"

"Yeah, yeah," laughed the traveler.

"We have one problem though." The radiant smile faded from Morgana's face as she continued. "What if she's just being friendly? I mean, I said that she had a nice face, but she probably has people tell her that all the time and it's perfectly platonic. She's so wonderful, people probably say things that sound like flirting all the time! How would she be able to tell—"

"Morgana." The traveler sat up and leaned forward onto his elbows. "You've slept over at her house for five days or something. And she liked you when you didn't have the glamour, regardless of it being her occupation. You have not changed personalities just because you're disguised. She stammered just like you did when she complimented you. How can you possibly be this thick and still think she _isn't_ aware that you like her?"

Morgana sat next to the traveler on the mattress. He rubbed her back reassuringly while she fidgeted with the sheets on the bed. "You're right," she said after a moment. "Still, I'm already so anxious that she won't want to talk to me if I remove my glamour. I did bad things, my friend. You know I did."

"I'm not going to tell you that you didn't."

"But I feel like it's not fair to Gwen to keep hiding like this, you know? I want to actually pursue a… well, a life with her," Morgana said, a wistful smile growing on her face. "And I need to be honest with someone that I'm spending my life with."

The traveler stiffened. "You're… staying?"

Morgana looked crestfallen at that. "Oh… yeah. I was going to tell you, I promise, I just— I just forgot. But I want to stay here, with Gwen. Now that I'm not solely motivated by burning Camelot to the ground, I need to do something with myself. And it might only be a tiny part of it, but living with Gwen is something I want to do with my future. So… yes. Yes, my friend, I think I'm staying. Obviously, I want to keep in contact with you after you leave but I won't… I won't be coming with you."

"Hey," said the traveler, relaxing his shoulders a bit. "No worries. I'll support anything you do. Don't feel bad about knowing what you want."

"I don't want you to be alone though. Who'll take care of you when I'm not with you? I mean," she scoffed, but the snark was lost in her concern, "you certainly can't take care of yourself."

The traveler shook his head. "Don't limit yourself for my sake. I'll be fine."

"I'm certain you won't be." She hopped off the bed and crossed the room to the door, holding out her hand as if inviting him to dance. "Care to leave this dreadful room with me? We've only been in the same place, staring at the same walls, for some sixteen hours or so."

"Absolutely," replied the traveler, happy for the change of subject. He moved off the bed more slowly, but accepted her hand with a smile. The two of them whisked out into the hallway, hardly waltzing but moving with whatever exaggerated grace they could muster.

Not too long after, the traveler had to stop spinning like an idiot and slow down, too tired to continue. Morgana helped him through the halls and they wandered to the kitchens again, as if following a shadow left behind from the morning. The smell of freshly-baked bread and cooking meat wafted through the air. The traveler's stomach growled cavernously and he looked to Morgana, embarrassed. She made no attempt to hold back a laugh.

"I suppose we may have to steal from Morge after all."

The traveler popped his head around the doorway and retreated quickly. "Well, she's got her back turned."

"The fool."

"Yeah. I mean, has she met _anyone_ in this castle?"

"Clearly not."

"What do you think, bread with… meat?"

"What, you mean like hand pies? They'd be… slightly more balanced than other things," conceded Morgana.

"Yeah, sure. Hand pies it is."

It was hardly five minutes later that the two of them hustled away from the kitchens, escaping a wooden spoon with four hand pies and some cheese, laughter filling the traveler's stomach before any food could. They stopped near a flight of stairs and sat down to eat. They devoured the meat pies ravenously and polished off the cheese after licking their fingers clean. Sighing contentedly, the traveler leaned against the wall.

"You know what would solve all our problems?" he asked. "Or most of them, at any rate."

"No, what?"

"If we killed the duke." He shook his head slightly. "Sorry: 'Dennis.'"

Morgana just started to laugh again, a booming, skeptical laugh that made the traveler feel uneasy. "Oh, yes, my friend, we could kill the bastard. And yes, that'd solve more of our problems than I think even you realize."

"Well, I did suggest it in the first place," said the traveler with a small smile. He steepled his hands in a mockery of how Arthur looked when he was thinking and couldn't pace. "Off the top of my head, I'd say that immediate benefits would include eliminating his influence on Arthur, emotional catharsis, getting rid of the slimy jackass—"

"I'd kill him just for that," interjected Morgana, long-dormant bloodlust behind her eyes. "Just to see him dead, after everything he's done. That'd be enough all on its own."

"I'm sure. But you might also have your magic returned to you." Before the traveler even finished speaking, Morgana had tilted her head to the side, considering it. The traveler slipped his hand into hers. "Obviously there's no guarantee for this. But you might get it back."

She shook her head, not denying it but not giving it much thought. "It doesn't matter. I can live without magic— I have for a good couple of months now. But the question remains: how would we go about it?"

"I presume," said the traveler, a smile working its way over his face, "that you have an idea."

"If we went to Arthur and explained how he was impersonating a duke, that might work. We could get him hanged for that."

"But then he might—"

It was then that Arthur rounded a corner opposite them in the intersection of hallways and veered towards them, a suspicious look on his face. They did make for an odd scene, supposed the traveler, with the crumbs of meat pies dusting their clothes and their heads bent close together in conspiracy. That didn’t mean Arthur had to look at them like they were his enemies.

“What are you two doing?” asked Arthur, judgement already apparent in his voice.

Without missing a beat, Morgana glanced to him and replied, “Plotting a homicide,” and turned back to the traveler, muttering about the drawbacks of going to Arthur with everything they knew.

Arthur gained a slightly green color in his face and whisked away, leaving the traveler and Morgana to giggle as he left. And though the traveler and Arthur’s souls may have been bound by destiny and the immortal magic of the land, Morgana and the traveler had chosen to link their spirits, to reconcile after everything from fate to Kilgarrah (though the two often blurred) conspired against their friendship. Collapsing into each other from laughter, the bond between the two of them blazed, to hell with prophecy, their pasts, even Arthur. Nothing could destroy this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! It’s been a while since I updated; sorry about that! Between school, 2 D&D campaigns (soon to be 3... I just can’t stop, apparently), and a few other things, this just kept getting pushed to the side. But I’m going to try to and keep to a more regular updating schedule, even though we all know how well that’s worked out in the past.
> 
> That said, this chapter was kind of a speed bump compared to everything that’s going to follow, so I think I’ll have an easier time with upcoming chapters! I’m so stoked to finally get around to the chapters that were the first things I thought of when writing this. We’re almost at the end folks! We’ve got a maximum of 5 chapters left, possibly four, and it’ll get worse before it gets better. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, I promise.
> 
> Clichés aside! I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter, please drop some kudos or comment (even though I rarely respond, seeing your feedback makes me overjoyed! I am just bad at correspondence and speech outside of prose) to tell me what you thought.
> 
> Thanks _so_ much to my wonderful beta and dear friend @WolvaraAsh. It’s been nearly a year at this point since I started writing Hidden and I’m so lucky to have her as a beta and friend. She’s gotten me through other ‘speedbumps,’ advised me on things I had difficulty with, and helped me break through a few odd narrative habits of mine. Her art and writing is on everything from Tumblr to Wattpad, all under the same name, so I absolutely recommend looking at her art! She’s unspeakably talented.
> 
> If you want to talk to me, feel free to check out my tumblr: @amateursuperhero-withapen.


	23. Culmination

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's so much stuff that I PROMISE to explain in the notes but like just bear with me for now

Arthur paced in his room, walking the same path he'd been wearing in the floor since Merlin had gone missing. With only a day left to the funeral, nerves tickled his arms and made the hairs rise on his skin. He hadn't been able to work his way out of the same thoughts for almost an hour now: everyone who was close to him was falling away and moving on, leaving him to the loneliness that was slowly hollowing him out.

His knights had lives of their own, lives that they were continuing without him. Merlin, of course, had died, in many ways severing Arthur's connection with the rest of the castle. Gwen and the sorceror's friend were flirting, which was great, but Arthur was left floundering with no one to turn to. And the sorceror, the strangely comforting enemy of the state, was leaving soon. Far too soon.

It was his fault, really, for being unable to hold and maintain friendships. He'd always had new relationships dropped in his lap without seeking them out, and after twenty-six years he wasn't sure how to start one.

‘Arthur—’ protested Merlin’s ghost, not for the first time. And not for the first time, Arthur ignored him. Dwelling on the dead would do nothing to help him. Merlin mumbled some more but subsided after Arthur kicked a chair.

The door to his room slammed open and slammed shut. Arthur barely kept from jumping but reached for his sword instinctively before he registered Gwen. She was flushed, out of breath, with a nervous grin splitting her face. Arthur kept pacing, more because he couldn't stop than that he wanted to continue, and waved her inside.

"Arthur, I need your help," said Gwen once she'd sat down. She caught his hand as he passed her and stopped his pacing. He nodded his thanks.

"What with? What's wrong?"

Guiding Arthur into the chair opposite her, Gwen's smile widened. "Nothing's wrong, Arthur. Don't worry. But I... I need help with Ana."

Suspicion and unanswered questions surged to the forefront of his mind, and Arthur dismissed it quickly. He couldn't ruin this for Gwen. "What do you need help with? The two of you seemed to really hit it off. I mean, I hope I'm not assuming incorrectly, but the two of you seemed rather, ah, infatuated."

"You think so? I certainly am."

"Well, if the way you and she were stumbling over your sentences is any indication. But you know me. I've been wrong in the past."

"You're not wrong on this, Arthur. I don't need help with liking her, though. I need help with flirting with her. You know, _telling_ her that I like her, rather than sighing hopelessly. I can’t even hold a conversation with her without stumbling over my words!"

Arthur laughed, both at Gwen's description and the circumstance. "So you came to me? I was terrible at flirting with you. Why on earth do you think I'd be any help to you?"

She swatted his shoulder affectionately. "Don't be so hard on yourself, you weren't that bad."

"Oh, but I was still bad, was I?"

"Of course you were, Arthur. I don't think you'd ever been in a relationship before. How could you not be bad at it?"

"Granted. Not that that answers why you'd come to me for advice on talking to Ana, especially if you really like her. I haven't got the faintest idea how to do that." Arthur drummed his fingers on the table. "Self-doubt aside, how can I help?"

"Well, okay. Here's the thing. I don't know how to actually, you know, tell her how I'm feeling about her. Or how to even go about opening that conversation. She's just...," Gwen sighed and flopped over the table, hiding her face with her arms. "She's so pretty, Arthur. She's so pretty and so nice, and I just like looking at her and talking with her and I don't even know what I'm doing."

Arthur looked at her, eyebrows raised. "Are you kidding? You saw how hard she was blushing when she talked to you, right? You don't even have to be that explicit, just ask her out and work your way up to telling her that. She definitely likes you."

"Are you sure?" asked Gwen, her voice still muffled.

"Gwen. She said she liked your face. How else can you possibly interpret that?"

She finally lifted her face from the table only to rest her chin on her arm. "It can't _possibly_ be that simple, though! There's got to be something else. Why'd she like me? I mean, you saw her, she's amazing. She was just flustered, probably, because she tripped down all those stairs. Right? She tripped in front of you, the king. That's pretty embarrassing."

Arthur sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose, and closed his eyes, searching desperately for some patience. "She also... tripped in front of _you,"_ he pointed out, exasperation dripping from his voice.

"But—"

Arthur cut Gwen off. "She likes you, Gwen. She absolutely does. I may not be any good at acting on this either, but at least I can tell that your feelings are returned. Go ask her out on a date and this will all be fine.”

Gwen stood up, looking for a second like she was going to argue, before biting her lip and nodding. She paused, and then nodded again, more sure of herself. "Yes. Okay. I'll do that." She rounded the table and stopped just long enough to hold Arthur's hand. "Thank you, Arthur. I know it's small compared to everything else going on, but this means a lot to me. And it means a lot to have such a supportive friend."

Gwen smiled and closed the door softly on her way out. Arthur stared after her, unable to tear his gaze from the door. He had a damning sense of dread bearing down on him that something was coming, something that would put everyone he knew and cared about in danger. But that couldn’t be. The army couldn’t be that, because the sorceror would take care of it. And he couldn’t think of anything else that could bring about the end of everything he held dear.

ー

It was only a few hours later that Gwaine exploded in, and Arthur was glad that he’d cleared his day of meetings. He had the feeling he wouldn’t be left with a lot of time to write his speech if he had.

“I wanted to talk to you.” Gwaine’s cloak swirled around his ankles as he came to a halt.

“Yes, I figured.” Arthur leaned back in his chair, away from his speech, and steepled his fingers. “What about?”

For the first time since Arthur had known him, Gwaine looked hesitant. “Well, Arthur, here’s the thing.” Gwaine looked away. “The sorceror... He told me about how you’re hearing Merlin’s voice. He dragged me along to the library so he could do some research. Or,” he laughed, but it came out stunted and bitter, “I followed him there after his curse affected him so terribly he thought his legs were gone. Though that’s not the point.”

Arthur nodded. “So what is the point, Gwaine?”

Gwaine hunched over the table, looking troubled. “The point is that he found something. He didn’t say what, but I might be able to find out. And for all we know, it might indicate that Merlin’s still alive.” He turned away and started circling the area. “I talked to Gaius, too.”

“You did?”

“Mm-hmm. I told him everything the sorceror told me, as well as a few other things about his condition that I observed. I know you’ve given up hope, and I know everyone else has too, but I haven’t.” Gwaine whipped back around with the intensity of a laser. “There are too many loose ends, Arthur! At the very least, postpone the funeral. Gwen told me that Hunith doesn’t believe that he’s dead either—“

“She wasn’t supposed to do that.”

“—Well she did, Arthur! And frankly, I can’t believe you would discount that.”

“I didn’t take you for the superstitious type.”

Gwaine threw up his hands. “I never said a thing about superstition, Arthur. Hunith might not have seen Merlin, but if she feels strong enough about this to refuse to attend his funeral, I’d rather listen and have taken the precaution than to have ignored her and regretted it.”

“Well, what about you?” Arthur shot to his feet.

“What about me?”

“Are you attending? Or will you be moping in your room, still in denial?”

Gwaine scoffed and crossed his arms. “I’ll be doing what I think is the right decision.”

“That’s not an answer, Gwaine,” said Arthur, shaking his head. “And if you’re even entertaining the idea of not going to Merlin’s funeral, then you and Hunith are sharing a boat. Both of you are too scared of the possibility of Merlin’s death to accept it and give him the rites that he’s due. We owe it to him to accept that.”

“You’re so full of shit, Arthur.”

Arthur shrugged and sat back down, inviting Gwaine to do the same. He started drumming his fingers to a drinking song that Merlin used to sing. “Maybe,” he conceded. “But you said you wanted to talk about me hearing Merlin’s voice?”

Gwaine tossed his hair out of his way irritably and took a seat. “Yes. Well, among other things.”

“Such as?”

“The sorceror. There’s something off about him; I swear I’ve known him for years. He’s familiar, more familiar than he has any right to be.” Gwaine picked at his fingers, trying to get the dirt out from under his fingernails. “And... there’s a few other things. Not... about the sorceror. Or really a threat or anything like that—”

“If you don’t mind,” interrupted Arthur, “can we get back to that later? I’d rather know why you think the sorceror is familiar.”

Embarrassed, Gwaine nodded. “Sure. It’s really just the way he talks, at least to me. When I came across in the stairwell— that’s where he was when he thought he’d lost his legs— he was relieved to see me. And that’s perfectly understandable, with this face,” Gwaine flashed a smile, “but he... oh, I can’t explain it, Arthur. It’s just the way he talked to me. He looked at me, and he looked like I could solve everything. Or like I could save him. I don’t think I did, though his episode did stop. But, here’s the thing, when it did and he had more clarity, he addressed me more formally, as if calling me by my name was a slip-up or mistake. He seemed— not guilty, but worried. As if worried he’d be found out.”

“He hasn’t exactly ‘slipped up’ with me, or I don’t think he has,” Arthur began slowly, as if the ideas were coming to him like water from a leaky ceiling, “but he does act like he knows me better than I know him. He sometimes says things that only my friends say. I swear he was almost going to tell me he was proud of me after he read the legislation on magic. Just a few days ago, he almost patted my shoulder. _No one_ does that, except for you and the other knights and Gwen.”

The two of them stayed silent for a few moments. Arthur traced the grain of the wood, careful to avoid the more splinter-prone parts of the table. There was something that he was just barely missing about the whole puzzle, and it was probably simple. Gwaine jolted, knocking over an ink bottle. Luckily, it was closed.

“Merlin did.”

“Sorry, Merlin did what?”

“Merlin patted your shoulder.”

“Yes, a few times.” Arthur could remember each time well. “Why?”

“You’re thicker than Camelot’s walls,” Gwaine muttered under his breath. _“Because,_ you airhead, when I was in the library, I realized that the only person other than the sorceror who knew to look for answers about your hearing Merlin’s voice would be _Merlin.”_

Arthur merely stared, still not understanding the immense implications of everything Gwaine had just said.

‘Oh, come on, Arthur. A dormouse could have understood that,’ interjected Merlin’s ghost, joining the conversation for the first time. He hadn’t tried to talk to Arthur after the last incident earlier that morning, but it was clear he wouldn't be thrown off for long.

“Arthur,” said Gwaine, pulling Arthur back to the moment. “Have you processed that yet?”

“We’ve been over this, Gwaine. Merlin is dead. And anyway, he _definitely_ isn’t the sorceror, if I’m reading what you’re implying properly. He doesn’t— didn’t— have magic!”

'Even you don't believe what you're saying,' muttered Merlin's ghost. Arthur ignored him resolutely.

“And you’re not hearing me, for fuck’s sake! We don’t have a body, a murderer, evidence, proof, anything!” Gwaine slammed his hand on the table. “In fact, I’d even go so far as to say we have more evidence for his survival than his death.” His voice softened, which was a bit like saying someone had dulled a porcupine’s quills so they took slightly longer to pierce skin. “And he could have been bewitched.”

“For what?” demanded Arthur. “For what purpose, huh? Why bewitch Merlin?”

“Why kill him?!”

Merlin's ghost didn't seem to have an opinion on his fate, and stayed silent.

“I can think of a hell of a lot more reasons to kill someone than bewitch them! To get them out of the way, to steal from them easily, even just to get rid of them if they're annoying. But enchanting someone has to be tiring, right? Why expend the extra energy?"

Gwaine looked away irritably, swatting his hand at Arthur. "Forget it. You clearly don't want to consider it." Then, under his breath, "You thick-headed ass."

Arthur rested his elbows on the table and held his head in his hands. “Please go away, Gwaine. Just... I’ll see you later, alright? Not right now.”

“Fine.” Gwaine pushed in his chair. “Ah... by the way. I and the rest of the knights are going drinking tonight, in Merlin’s...” It seemed to pain Gwaine to say it, “Memory. So, if you’d like to come along, you’re welcome to. I won’t get into any fights with you then, on my word.”

“I’ll go,” Arthur promised. “But for now, please just leave me to write my speech.”

Gwaine nodded and made paused at the open door. “And... I’m sorry, Arthur. My theories weren’t, uh, appropriate. I know you’ve got a lot going on and it was rude. I shouldn’t have brought them up.”

“No, you shouldn’t have. But apology accepted.”

“I’ll be, ah, going, then.” Gwaine still wasn’t leaving.

“Yes,” prodded Arthur, “I think you’d better.”

With a final glance back at Arthur, Gwaine edged out of the room and shut the door behind him, which boomed closed in the silence he left behind. The room felt too big now, with everyone loud and silly gone. Even with the funeral being a day away, Arthur couldn’t quite wrap his head around Merlin’s death. It felt alien, unnatural. But it was true, all the same. All Arthur had left were some clothes and a voice that was probably more an indicator of madness than a lurking phantom.

Abruptly, Arthur shot out of the chair and zipped into the hallway after Gwaine.

"Gwaine!" he called, forbidden desperation leaking through his voice. "Gwaine, wait! I need to ask you something."

It was only a few seconds later that he caught up with Gwaine, who was standing in the middle of the hall, nonplussed. "I thought you wanted me to leave," he said. "Make up your mind, or we're all in trouble."

"You said that the sorceror was looking up voices, right? In a context of me hearing them, correct?" Arthur tried very hard not to seem like he was out of breath, but he wasn't doing a very good job of it. "And he went to the library. Did he take anything out of it? Was he reading anything when you two left?"

"Yes, he was. Or he did." Gwaine grumbled something about Arthur asking too many questions to answer properly. "What I mean to say is, the sorceror did get something out. It was a compilation of essays, I believe. I didn't get a chance to ask him about it any more, but he found it in the medical section and then he came to get me. He told me... oh, what was it... He said 'I believe I have everything I need.'"

"I wonder why he hasn't told me about his conclusions, if he has everything he needs to understand the cause of my hearing Merlin's voice." If the sorceror was leaving the day after the funeral, surely he'd tell Arthur everything as quickly as possible.

"I don't know, Arthur. Now, if you don't mind, I have some things of my own to be doing."

"Of course, of course."

Gwaine set off down the hall at a brisk pace, breaking into a run as soon as he thought Arthur couldn't see him. Arthur wondered where he was going at such speed.

If Arthur was a sorceror researching magic voices, where would he put information about it? Well, Arthur had given the sorceror a room that he'd promised would be private. If anywhere would be considered secure by a secretive sorceror, that would be it.

He could, of course, just ask about what the sorceror had found. The sorceror had been mostly sleeping over the last few days, so it was possible he had just not gotten around to talking to Arthur.

It was also profoundly possible that the sorceror had purposefully been avoiding Arthur and had no intention of ever informing Arthur of what he'd discovered. If that was the case, then Arthur might have to take the essay from the sorceror's room to Gaius so that he could finally get some answers.

He'd just have to see how it went.

Arthur set off towards the sorceror's room. He'd carried the sorceror there not once, but twice now, and he wished he could dismiss Gwaine's feelings of familiarity surrounding the sorceror. Alas, there was no chance of that.

The sorceror just seemed like a friend, a good friend, and it was difficult not to like him, no matter what came up. He might be best friends with Morgana, who'd attack Camelot over and over and betrayed Arthur in a bid for the throne? Okay, that could be forgiven. His very existence was a crime, one that had been the crime all of Camelot feared? Happens to the best of us. No matter what Arthur discovered, he suspected that he would still consider the sorceror a friend. Even if that went against everything he'd known for twenty seven years.

The door came into view, and Arthur immediately noticed that it was shut. Not that seeing that told him anything; Ana and the sorceror always seemed to keep it shut.

Pushing down concerns that he was betraying the trust of his guests, Arthur knocked twice on the door. With no answer, he tried the door and was pleasantly surprised to see that it wasn’t latched. As a last check that the room was unoccupied, Arthur poked his head through the door and looked around at the sparse bedroom.

It was devoid of all life. Even the dust in the air seemed still.

Arthur slipped inside and set himself to finding the essays on voices. It wasn’t too difficult; there were few things in the room, and paper stuck out like a sore nose.

‘I really don’t think you should be doing this, Arthur,” Merlin’s ghost objected. ‘You started with eavesdropping, now you’ve moved on to breaking and entering, and you intend to steal from this man! You’re supposed to be more courteous than this.’

“Oh, shut it, Merlin. I don’t want to hear it.”

Arthur was pleased to see that the sorceror had saved the draft of the law to legalize magic, leaving a few notes in the margins. Most of the notes were serious, following the lines of advice, but others were silly or just outright jokes. The sorceror must have been in a sarcastic mood when he’d read through it the first time, as there were arrows drawn towards the snarkier comments that said things like “I was tired, sorry about this” and “this reminded me of a joke, I had to” and perhaps Arthur’s favorite, which was “I have no excuse for this.” Every note felt like making the sorcery more and more normal, humanizing the sorceror rather than making him seem stiff.

Arthur put the draft back where he’d found it and continued his search, carefully rifling through an assortment of papers on the left nightstand. Some of the papers were abstract charcoal drawings that Arthur was sure the sorceror didn’t do. The charcoal smudged over his fingers and he left a few dirty fingerprints on other papers.

At last, he came across a folio labeled ‘Medical Magic: Theory and Studies’ which was probably exactly what he was looking for. Arthur flipped through it, looking for what the sorceror had been reading, for what he said was all he needed.

A scrap of paper upon which “the answer” was scrawled was on one essay that was laced together with twine. Arthur snatched the essay and hurried out of the sorceror’s room as quickly as he could. He was tempted to break into a run and sprint all the way to Gaius’ chambers but he reasoned that would bring too much attention to him and would appear rather suspicious.

It took painfully long to climb every stair to Gaius’ rooms. Arthur clutched the essay to his chest. He’d left the scrap of paper behind, but the handwriting, familiar in a strange and nagging way, was burned into his memory. Arthur pounded on the door, almost out of breath but unwilling to admit it.

“Come in,” Gaius called, his voice uncharacteristically thin.

Arthur slipped in. Gaius was slumped over, leaning heavily on his hand as he scanned through one of his many books. He barely glanced up at Arthur, but he greeted him by name all the same.

“There’s nothing,” Gaius lamented. “Well, there’s not _nothing,_ but there’s so little that there might as well be. The Blade of Cahrathis is not in my compilation of notable artifacts, nor is it in ‘Notable Enchantments’ or ‘Magical Weapons.’ The only mention I’ve found of it was in ‘Organizations in Our Society,’ but that was only how it was used in a initiation ritual for some cult I’d never heard of before now. Apparently, the Blade was their only notable achievement.”

“I have something, Gaius. I have something that might have all the answers, to the sorceror, to Merlin’s voice, to this whole mess!” Arthur dropped the essay on Gaius’ table.

“Wait,” Gaius said, startled. Arthur could only tell because of how long he’d known Gaius. “Merlin’s voice? You never said anything about this. What are you talking about?”

Arthur froze, most uncommon occurrence. He’d been hiding that particular detail from Gaius in the interest of not giving him any false hope, but now that it had slipped out, there really wasn’t much of a reason not to go into more detail. He rubbed the scarf in his pocket for reassurance. He had to be doing the right thing.

“For a while now, I’ve been hearing Merlin’s voice. We just have conversations, Gaius. Exactly the conversations we had when he was still...” Arthur grimaced. “Around. I’ve been trying to ignore him, as of late, because I _know_ it’s not him—“ Gaius looked away, “—but it’s difficult. I miss him, you know? I wish he was still next to me, in more than spirit, and hearing him makes it feel that way. It’s a comfort, a sort of anchor sometimes. Just like he was.”

Gaius said nothing for a long time.

“How does this piece of paper explain that?” he asked eventually.

Arthur shook his head. “I don’t know. The sorceror just had it marked as ‘the answer,’ so I figured it was important. Even if I’d read it, I don’t think I’d understand it. The folio it was in was titled something-something ‘theory,’ and I don’t think I know enough about magic to understand.”

“No, you definitely don’t.” Gaius started looking over the paper, his eyes flicking back and forth across each page ravenously. “I’ll get back to you when I have a hypothesis of moderate credibility. Have a nice day, sire.”

Arthur gave an unacknowledged nod and slipped back out the door, glad for the possibility of answers.

ー

Arthur couldn’t bring himself to really do anything else until he went down to the tavern with the knights, so he spent the intervening hours talking the Merlin’s ghost and trying to pretend everything was as it had been.

He was unsuccessful.

His room, which once had been filled with bad jokes and teasing felt cold and impersonal now. Arthur had only allowed servants in to do the bare minimum since Merlin had disappeared; he'd never managed to let someone else into Merlin's position. Nevertheless, his room was far cleaner than Merlin had ever let it be. Merlin would sooner jump off a cliff than put everything exactly where he'd found it, but the two of them always knew where things were, so it had always felt like one more connection between them. Now, everything was put away but impossible to find. It went beyond clean and verged into sterile. Arthur had Merlin's voice and his scarf and six years of his wisdom bumbling around in Arthur's brain, but that was it. Merlin was almost a year gone, and Arthur had still never quite let go, no matter what he told the knights to do.

He no longer caught himself turning to show Merlin something funny, but he would put his hand on his left shoulder (though only if he was alone; he didn't want anyone thinking he was injured), right where Merlin would rest his hand when Arthur was stressed, agitated, angry, or just in general having a very bad day.

Arthur had been having a very bad day for nine months now.

Nothing, no matter how wonderful it felt in the moment, had managed to have any lasting, positive impact on his life since Merlin had left. Or been taken. Or killed. Or whatever in the hell had actually happened.

Perhaps that was one of the worst things; Arthur had never found a definitive answer on what had happened to Merlin. Oh, he had theories and dreams and fears, but none of them were really any more concrete than any others. Except for the conclusion that Merlin had died. Merlin would never stay away from Camelot for this long. He would never leave Arthur without saying goodbye or telling him what was going on. Merlin just wouldn’t _do_ that. Not to Arthur, nor to anyone else. Merlin wasn’t that kind of person.

Merlin was, however, the kind of person to be wrapped up in something dangerous and come out the other side worse for wear. He was also the kind of person to be generous to strangers, no matter how suspicious, and the kind of person who was willing to help anyone in need, regardless of the risk to himself.

It was infuriating and stupid and dangerous and admirable. It was so much more than anything Arthur asked of any servant, above and beyond how most of the knights acted, and most of all, so much kinder than Arthur himself. A childhood of playing soldiers had trained the blind generosity out of him. The value of a stable kingdom, drilled into him since birth and impressed upon him everyday since his father’s death, killed the willingness to help without thought given to consequences. Despite such values being everything the Knight’s Code demanded and preached, it was a peasant, a man who’d probably never seen a knight before coming to Camelot, who best embodied those values.

Merlin deserved a knighthood more than anyone else in the whole kingdom, of that Arthur was certain.

He’d confirmed that knighthoods could be bestowed post-mortem just the other day and planned on doing so with Merlin. If nothing else, he needed to be able to justify everything he was doing for Merlin. It was a weak excuse, true, but he couldn’t think of anything else.

He also couldn’t think of what to write as a speech.

The problem was not really that he had nothing at all to say about Merlin. The problem was that he had far too much to say and nowhere to start. At the beginning? When was that? When Merlin had challenged him as Arthur had thrown knives at another servant? No, they weren’t friends yet. Merlin’s birth? No, Arthur didn’t really know anything about that and Hunith had refused to come. The day of the banquet? Well...

Possibly.

Merlin had proven himself more than just cocky that day, as he’d shown in the market that first week. He’d demonstrated true bravery and selflessness, not to mention cleverness by keeping himself from being affected by the fake Lady Helen’s magic song.

But was it the _right_ beginning? Without knowing the answer, Arthur started trying to write it out.

‘Merlin and I have known each other for 6 years,’ began the speech. But it wasn’t right at all; first of all, he was writing as if Merlin was still alive. But it also was a weak opener. Everyone knew Merlin; everyone knew how long he’d been Arthur’s manservant. Arthur drew one decisive line through the sentence and wrote below it, ‘Before Merlin and I were even friends, he saved my life.’

While technically true, it didn’t carry the same weight of exactly what Merlin had done. Not only had he and Merlin not been friends, they’d actively disliked each other. Additionally, most people were eager to have monarchs owe them things. It was too easy to misinterpret as it was written. No, this had to be perfect. For Merlin.

He drew a vicious line through that one too.

In an effort to articulate _why_ it was so difficult to write a good speech, he scrawled, 'Merlin used to write my speeches. He was eloquent and insightful,' but scratched it out immediately. Merlin's speech writing was not the most important thing about him! Why highlight _that_ of all things, when what really characterized Merlin was his kindness and his optimism and his ability to make others better? Not matter what happened, that couldn't be taken away.

Arthur stared out the window for a while, thinking of a all the things Merlin had done to help Arthur and all the things the two of them had gone through. There were times, Arthur knew, that Merlin was ruthless or he followed Arthur against his better judgement or he lost things he shouldn't have had to lose. But he couldn't think of a single instance where he questioned Merlin's morality, integrity, or worth as a person. As a servant, maybe, but never Merlin's worth as an adviser and friend. Merlin was irreplaceable; he couldn't be replicated in any dimension.

But there were things that Arthur didn't know, things that he _knew_ he didn't know. And there was probably only one person who did.

Arthur gathered up his notes for a speech and took a few blank sheets of paper and a pen, in case anything else came to him, and set off towards Gaius' quarters. If anyone in the whole castle knew what Merlin spent his days doing when he wasn't around Arthur, it would be the man who covered for him.

Arthur had, a long while ago, determined that Merlin was rarely in the tavern. Merlin had never seemed like the sort of person who had any experience at all drinking and Gwaine never seemed to see him there either. Given how much time Gwaine spent drinking, in places that might serve alcohol, and in general around the tavern, the only chance he had of not seeing Merlin there was if Merlin never went. Still, Merlin had earned his privacy. But now that he was dead, what was the harm of asking where he'd been? What adventures had he gone on when evading Arthur and shirking his job?

Arthur knocked at Gaius' door, but it swung open easily. Strange, Gaius had kept his door at the very least latched, thus requiring use of the door handle, for the past several years.

"Gaius?" Arthur called. "Gaius, I was hoping to talk to you. It's... nothing urgent, so if you're busy I can come back later."

After a pause, a thin voice caught Arthur just as he was about to leave. "No problem, my boy. I'm in Merlin's room; come on back."

Arthur glanced at the door, which was shut, and realized he'd been unconsciously avoiding looking in its direction. That was _Merlin's_ and another reminder of his absence. It'd been empty for so long, but the last time he'd been in there… Arthur touched the scarf in his pocket, just to reassure himself that it was still there. It'd been too long.

Swallowing his grief as best he could, Arthur crossed the physician's quarters and opened the door to Merlin's room.

Gaius sat on Merlin's tiny bed, staring emptily at a shirt in his hands. Tears streaked down Gaius' face and more were welling up in his eyes. A few spots of the shirt were dark with tears as well. Arthur wondered how long Gaius had been sitting there.

"Are you, er..." Arthur trailed off, unsure how to handle this. "Is this a good time?"

Gaius sighed. "No. But I don't think any other time will be either. What did you want to talk to me about?"

"Are— Are you sure? I don't want to upset you, er, any more than you are." Arthur winced. Hardly the kindest way to put that. "I can come back later."

He knew he couldn't if he wanted to get answers before the funeral; he'd promised to go with the knights to the tavern for a more private memorial and that would probably go late into the morning. There was no other time if he decided to use these new stories for his speech but it was also possible that these were stories to keep to himself, stories that were left behind for him and him alone.

Gaius only nodded and wiped away his tears, clearly not trusting himself to speak.

Arthur froze, unsure of what to do. Launch into his questions? Pat Gaius on the back? Try to comfort him? His hand found itself in his pocket and he gripped the scarf. What to do, then?

Merlin's ghost seemed to be at a similar loss.

"What do you have there?" asked Gaius, pointing to the speech notes. Arthur thanked who ever was out there that Gaius had moved the conversation along.

"It's for the funeral. For my speech. I'm trying to make it the best I can. But nothing is quite right for it, Gaius. No beginning is the right one. And I can't put everything about him down on paper; some of him is more of a feeling than something I can express." Arthur sighed. "But I came here to know what happened when Merlin wasn't in the tavern."

Gaius stiffened beside him. "Why?" was all he said.

"Because he wasn't there and I want to know what his life was like. I want to know everything that I didn't when he could tell me. I feel... I feel like I failed him." Arthur put his notes behind him and sank forward. "You know? He always came back injured. And if he wasn't injured, it was like his heart was broken over something. I just want to know what."

Gaius relaxed, though he stood up and folded the shirt, always careful to stay at least across the bed from Arthur. "Merlin was— You know how Merlin was to you, don't you, sire?"

"Of course," said Arthur, nodding. "I'd have to be blind to miss that."

"Indeed you would," agreed Gaius. He smiled slightly. "I hope you also know how much you meant to Merlin. He'd do anything for you, whether you asked or not. He was completely devoted to you."

"Again, I know."

Gaius gingerly put the shirt in a drawer and gripped the wood of the worn dresser as if steeling himself for a difficult decision. He turned around suddenly, grim fear barely hidden behind his physician's mask. "Merlin risked his life for you, sire. He did so repeatedly, not to mention often. To say he was heroic would be under-selling him and his actions." Gaius paused, and any resolve he'd built up crumbled. "But, and I am sorry Arthur, I can't tell you. Not now. Maybe... in a while. A week? A month, maybe? Longer? I just can't, Arthur. I can't explain it now."

Arthur gaped.

"Arthur?"

"What do you mean you can't?"

Gaius shook his head. "Now, with everything happening tomorrow, is not the time."

"If not for his memory, if not now, then when?!" demanded Arthur. "If he's been so noble and courageous, why not honor him as such at his funeral?"

At the word 'funeral,' Gaius winced. "You think it's simple, Arthur. It's anything but. I'll tell you one day. But not today."

Arthur picked up his speech notes from the bed and stomped towards the door, his confusion expressing itself as anger and frustration. He strangled the scarf in his pocket, wondering what about Merlin could possibly be so... so _anything_ that Gaius couldn't tell him.

"Arthur!" shouted Gaius, who followed him. "Arthur. Please. I'll explain it all to you. One day. But not this day."

"Fine."

It had only been a few hours since Arthur had left the essay with Gaius, but the air between them had already turned cold and tense. It seemed that almost everywhere was cold, tense, and angry these days. Arthur waved a terse goodbye to Gaius and headed for his alcove, desperate for some sort of peace.

ー

Once the sun had begun to set, Arthur made his way towards the tavern. He'd cleaned up his face and no one could tell now that he'd spent a good half hour crying in his alcove. He'd realized, probably not too long after he'd run out of tears, that he was probably only crying because of how everything was piling up. He hadn't had a good cry in a while, either.

The Rising Sun was not particularly crowded this evening; Arthur couldn't begin to think of why not, but he was glad of it. Still, a musician played on a stringed instrument that Arthur couldn't name and a few kids, some of the older squires, if Arthur had to guess, sat at the bar and drank things with low alcohol content.

The only other knight there yet was Lancelot. Arthur hadn't seen much of Lancelot outside of meetings and training. He'd mostly been left in charge of preparing the non-nobility for conflict and had dove so deep into his work that sometimes Arthur worried that he'd waste away, with nothing except the constant drive of training and exercise and trying to help to keep him alive. Gwaine had turned to drink; Lancelot had turned to work. Though more productive, Arthur still wished he hadn't.

"Evening," greeted Lancelot, his voice flat.

"Evening," Arthur echoed. "How are you?"

Lancelot looked down at his mug, which was only filled with water as far as Arthur could tell, and cracked a grim smile. "Not stellar, I'll admit."

"You can take a break, Lancelot." Arthur wasn't sure if his knight wanted to hear it, but he'd pursue it all the same. "You don't have to work constantly. No one will hold that against you or anything like that."

"No," Lancelot sighed. "It's nothing like that. I just feel like I failed him. I feel like it was my duty to make sure that he was okay, to be the person he was for everyone else, and I failed in that duty. I don't want to think about everything that could've happened to him. So I just... I _do_ work constantly. Because it's all I can do."

"None of what happened or didn't happen to Merlin is your fault," said Arthur after an awkward beat of silence.

"We don't even _know_ what happened to him."

Arthur rubbed the scarf, not liking where this conversation was going. "I know we don't. It's still not your fault."

Lancelot looked away, tears welling up in his eyes. "I should have been with him. No matter where he was, I should have been there. I'm the only one—"

But Lancelot did not continue, and only covered his eyes as best he could to hide his crying. Arthur gave him as much privacy as he could, which wasn't much, and scanned the tavern for the rest of the knights. There was too much _stuff_ to deal with on his own. Too many emotions he didn't know what to do with.

Gwaine and Percival came in then, holding hands. Arthur smiled and waved them over, relieved to introduce new, not-crying variables. He wasn’t sure about this smile, though. It felt like it was shaking.

No one picked up on it though, so Arthur pretended nothing was wrong.

“Arthur, Lance,” Percival greeted carefully. “Good evening."

Gwaine didn't say anything but he didn't look angry with Arthur anymore either.

Lancelot waved, still hiding his face. Arthur scooted as far as possible into the booth, leaving a space open for Percival and Gwaine, who slid in happily and did not let go of each other's hand. The four of them said nothing for a long while, content to listen to the musician pluck the strings of her instrument and to the kids' quiet jokes at the bar. Every once in a while, the girl on the far left would start talking about some complex topic and she wouldn't stop until someone else would interject. Her friends seemed totally engrossed in what she had to say, all the same.

Arthur couldn't help envying their easy relationship. He and the knights had become more distant and more stressed as time went on. Arthur didn't know how they could recover their fellowship without having Merlin back, so large was the impact of Merlin's death.

Or his disappearance.

Or whatever had actually happened.

"Do you remember when Merlin helped us steal a roll from the kitchens?" Gwaine asked Percival. He seemed desperate for conversation.

Percival laughed and nodded. "Every day for a week, he did that."

"Did he _really?"_ demanded Arthur incredulously.

Lancelot wore a shaky grin now. "You got in trouble, didn't you?"

"Yep!" said Gwaine brightly. "The eighth day we did it, just as we'd perfected our methods, Morge saw the rolls being reeled up through the grate. To make it worse, Leon came across us at almost the same time. We got chewed out from two directions at once."

"Merlin escaped, though," Percival put in. "He wouldn't let us forget it."

"Merlin figured out how to kill the skeleton army," Lancelot contributed, his face growing red.

"Oh, is _that_ why you didn't take out the bell?" teased Gwaine.

"Yeah, actually. We were on our way... to the bell, that is, and he, um, remembered something Gaius had told him. Or maybe it was something he'd read— I don't remember. But I remember that his eyes lit up and he started leading us to somewhere else and..." Lancelot trailed off and looked back at his mug.

"Why didn't he tell us?" asked Gwaine. He didn't seem angry, just perplexed that Merlin wouldn't take credit for his success. Arthur found himself wondering the same thing. Lancelot only shrugged.

"He asked me not to say anything, so I didn't," was his only answer.

Arthur didn't think this was a very satisfactory explanation. What had Merlin been hiding, he wondered, that he refused to be given credit where credit was due? He'd have to be given credit at the funeral, if at no other time.

Elyan slipped over to the booth then. He looked a little uncomfortable at the idea of sitting next to Lancelot, whose face was still streaked with tears, but did all the same. Lancelot knocked shoulders with Elyan in greeting and tried to dry his face, without much success. Elyan patted his shoulder.

"What's going on?" asked Elyan.

"We're sharing stories about Merlin while we wait for our drinks to show up," Gwaine explained.

“Ooh, I’ve got one,” said Elyan, settling into the seat with a smile. “One time, I was running late to training for the afternoon since I’d been set up by Gwen with a guy who she’d met ages ago and I didn’t want to cut it short.”

“Oo-ooh,” sing-songed Gwaine. “Was he hot?”

“Cut it out, Gwaine,” Elyan replied without heat. “But the point is that I was running late. And I’m sprinting through the halls, right? And Merlin I think was running just as late, if not more so; you know how Arthur is.” This set off a round of laughter which circled the table. “So Merlin and I just crash into each other— we both fall on our asses. And he gets up, and he’s a little unbalanced, a little unstable, and he runs directly into a wall.”

“Ouch,” Lance said sympathetically.

“I know, right? Well,” Elyan continued, “I help him up and he says to me, kind of miming taking something out of his pocket, ‘I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date! No time to say hello, goodbye! I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!’”

Another round of laughter.

“He sung it too.”

“He did not!” cried Percival incredulously.

“He did, I swear! I asked him about it later, though, and he said he didn’t remember it.” Elyan shook his head. “Never did find find out what that was about. But it makes for a good story, doesn’t it?”

“That it does,” Arthur agreed. “That it does.”

Leon entered at last and Gwaine called for a round of drinks. Arthur didn’t touch it and he noticed that Lancelot didn’t either. Gwaine, Elyan, and Percival downed their drinks quickly, but Leon sipped it despondently. He hadn’t spoken since he’d come in to the Rising Sun. Arthur sighed. There with Merlin gone, he had a feeling they’d smile and laugh significantly less.

Wiping his face of tears, Arthur swallowed his grief and most of his alcohol in one gulp.

ー

The rest of the night passed fuzzily. Arthur woke up in his bed and without a memory of anything, which he decided was a good thing.

His head hurt like hell though, and looking out the window at the sunrise only made it worse. He’d drunk alcohol before, but that was pretty much only at banquets and celebrations, thus under strict supervision of his father and the other members of the court. Arthur hadn’t cared to drink much more than what he’d had then, and he’d never really had a hangover before.

He hated it. He definitely hated it.

Though Arthur probably could’ve gone back to sleep, given how early it was, Arthur decided instead to just get it over with and get dressed. After he did, he turned back to his speech, which he still hadn’t finished. It felt too late to do it now.

The paper, to his surprise, was covered from edge to edge in a speech, though not a particularly coherent one, in his own handwriting.

He must have written it last night.

Arthur picked it up and read it out of curiosity.

‘Merlin, for whom we are gathered here today, was an exceptional friend to me and to, I’m told by many, the entire town if not the whole kingdom really.’ The speech only got less coherent from there. ‘Merlin was my best friend that I’ve ever known I’m not afraid to admit now that he was a brother to me more than a brother a best friend no that’s not close enough now that I think about it in fact I’m pretty sure I love no loved him I know he’s dead but I’ll never get used to the past tense when it comes to Merlin he was so present and such a present to the world not the best pun I’ll admit it but is it a lie? I don’t think so. He was kind and perfect and wonderful and generous and pretty and helpful and influential and clever and witty and wise and I loved him I loved him I loved him I loved him...’

The three damning words repeated for a while, devolved into scribbles, and continued to the edge of the page.

Arthur stared at the paper dumbly. It was far more honest than he’d ever been with himself. He didn’t know what to do with it: hide it away so no one could ever see it? Ask Gaius how to bring Merlin back from the dead so Arthur could tell him how he felt? Throw it in a fire and pretend it had never existed? The words were there, bold and solid, in ink that had dried hours ago. It felt too permanent now to be hidden away or forgotten.

Merlin didn’t _deserve_ to be hidden away or forgotten.

Deciding to put off any decision, Arthur folded up the note, tied it gingerly with Merlin’s scarf, and put it in his pocket. He headed up to Gaius’ workshop, hoping for a remedy for his hangover and some help.

ー

Arthur headed back to his room half an hour later after gulping down a foul-tasting potion for his headache and chickening out on showing Gaius the failed speech. He couldn’t stand to show it around.

He looked out the window of his room, thinking.

He still hadn’t written a real speech and the funeral was only a few hours away. What could he do now? Maybe he could just improvise.

Arthur shook his head and took a seat in front of his fireplace. He took the speech out of his pocket again and read it over and over, trying to determine when he'd reached the revelation that waited for him in every blisteringly honest word scratched into the paper. He'd denied it for years when Merlin was there to hear his confession; what harm was there in being honest about it now?

Of course, it was all too easy to think of why it was a terrible idea to tell the court and all the assembled peasants that he'd been in love with his own manservant for nearly half a decade and had never been able to come clean about that fact. Would his court think him soft in the head? Weak? Improper? They would certainly think his affections inappropriate. When he'd dated Gwen, that was one of his main concerns. But what would the people think? He'd always been on relatively good terms with his subjects. Would they like him more if he admitted to loving one of their number or would they, too, think him stepping outside of his rank in such a way to be a grievous social blunder?

Arthur couldn't know. It felt as though only Merlin had ever had the insight to understand how others reacted to things like that.

The knights, for all that they were brave and tactical, never had learned the intricacies of the court or acting as a sovereign. Leon perhaps had the best idea of it, but he was still able to hide behind his lesser nobility and a supporting rank. Arthur had been thrust in the middle of court whispers and conspiracies from a young age, but he'd still longed to simply live with the weight of a sword in his hand and to keep people safe; neither desire helped him understand how the other nobles thought and how tenuous his hold on power was.

The other knights knew even less than Leon and himself.

Gwaine, of course, had never had any more decorum than what was necessary to get out of paying a tab or wooing someone for a night or two. He was brash and blunt, with perhaps only his overflowing good intentions and loyalty to redeem him. Arthur smiled at the thought of Gwaine trying to act like a born noble but failed to picture it.

Elyan was far more polite than Gwaine could ever be, but he was still too honest to often think that others might not be. Where the members of the court were calculating and searching eagerly for an advantage, Elyan was absorbed by ways to help others.

Percival's patience was unique among the vapid lords who would call for a drink and berate whoever brought it to them for lateness regardless of how long it took. He was the best with children, a skill uncommon in his supposed social circle given the hands-off parenting style of many courtiers. He was always the first to take children under his wing and to make friends with them.

Lancelot might have been the best suited to life at court, but his strict observance of treating everyone with the same respect (which was completely admirable but also totally out of place) alienated him from many of the more traditional lords.

Interesting, thought Arthur, that what separated each of his knights from the court they were supposedly part of now was their kindness, generosity, and decency.

As if summoned, the knights burst into his room with Lancelot at their head.

“Good morning,” Arthur said on reflex.

“Do you remember what you said last night?” asked Gwaine instead of replying in kind.

“I do not, though I have my suspicions.”

Leon, from the very back, said, “Arthur, if you’d rather we leave this for later, I think I can wrestle a few of them out. Just give the word, sire.”

Arthur laughed. It felt louder in his ears than it did usually, perhaps clearer than normal, too. He shook his head. “No need. I rather think that I need to hear this, if it is what I think it is.” He paused for a second and looked down at the paper in his hand. He’d never be able to get rid of it, not really, even if he tore it up and burned it. The words were already etched in his mind. “I think I’d rather hear it from Lance, though. He’s the least likely to start yelling.”

A few of the knights snorted and Leon herded them out of Arthur's room.

When there was no one but Lancelot left, Arthur stood slowly, still wondering about the behavior of the court and the treatment of his knights. He looked over to Lancelot, who was as perfect a knight as always, and sighed. The people who deserved legal nobility the most never seemed to be the ones who ended up with it.

"I said I loved Merlin, didn't I."

Lancelot gave a bit of a start but nodded.

"I figured that I had. I woke up to find _this,"_ Arthur took the speech out of his pocket and tossed it on the table, "on my desk. Read if you like, but I have the feeling you've heard everything I wrote on it."

Lance barely looked at the paper. "Yes. You were quite adamant about the, er, last declaration."

Arthur sighed once more. "I imagine I was. Silly, right? To be so clear about how I feel only after he's gone. Don't you think he deserved to hear it too, Lancelot? I know that you and he were close. I know he told you things he never said to me. Don't you think he should have known? The brutal irony of the whole thing is that I don't think I even knew, at least I didn't know well enough to tell anyone."

Lancelot patted Arthur's shoulder kindly. "I think he knew, sire. And for what it's worth, I think he loved you too."

ー

A few hours later, just as the sun was directly overhead, Arthur and Lancelot headed out to the town square.

Flowers covered almost every wall, wreaths hung on every available column, ribbons linked tree branches together, and a few charms Arthur recognized from Druid camps hung inconspicuously on the edge. A massive display of flowers, mostly roses and wildflowers, was in the center of the square, the name 'Merlin' spelled out in crocuses that Gwen had picked the day before. It wasn't opulent, not really, but when a majority of the city's population had spent the last few days working for such an occasion, the result was bound to be impressive.

"When I said I would pay for everything," Arthur said to Lancelot, humor in his voice, "I admit I still thought it would be smaller than this. This is— I don't know how to describe it."

"This, I would say, is what happens when someone is loved, to one degree or another, by everyone they meet." Lancelot frowned a bit at the Druidic charms, which Arthur found odd; Lancelot had never seemed to be opposed to magic at all. Instead, he'd always made himself out to be as supportive of it as he could without risking a public execution and a charge of treason. "Merlin was really a part of life in Camelot. I can count the people on one hand who won't miss him. There was just—" he stopped for a second, "—something about him that made him almost supernaturally friendly."

"I'll say."

The two of them took their places at the bottom of the steps that led back into the castle, a few steps behind a makeshift podium, and waited for everyone else to arrive. Attendance at the funeral was by no means mandatory, but Arthur knew that most— if not all— of his citizens would be coming.

People trickled into the town square in twos and threes at first but they came in larger and larger clumps— families, housemates, servants who worked in the same areas— as time went on. Some of them were already talking amongst themselves and telling stories. Others walked through the citadel somberly, too deep in their grief to talk with anyone around them. Of those who were chatting between themselves, some were laughing or nearly jovial while other groups were crying and barely holding each other up.

"You weren't exaggerating when you said Merlin impacted most of the town," Arthur whispered to Lancelot.

"I know."

It wasn't long before the other knights joined Lancelot and Arthur on the steps, all clad in the armor Arthur had ordered forged for them personally. They arranged themselves on the steps in an arrow, with Arthur at the point. He saw Gwen arrive with Ana and the sorceror, but they were near a far wall and Arthur didn't call out to them. Gaius was at the wall opposite the three of them and he appeared to be staring at the sorceror in some sort of perplexed concern. It felt odd, definitely, to see him be so open with his emotions and his current expression did not fit at all with what Arthur would've expected at Merlin's funeral, especially not from Gaius. However, now was not a good time to ask him about it.

At last, the town square was full and the attendees were all gathered around Merlin's floral memorial. Arthur took a deep breath and stepped up to the podium as confidently as he could.

"I confess," he began, his voice booming over the crowd, "I didn't quite realize how many people Merlin had in his life. Seeing all of you here, all of _us_ here, filling the town square from wall to wall, really impresses upon me the impact that he's had on our city, if not on our world. Merlin had an exceptional talent to make friends with anyone and everyone he met; his compassion was always given freely and he was always willing to help others.

"The world, without him, feels a little dimmer than it ever did when he was around. His very soul seemed colorful and he made every single day far more enjoyable and wonderful than I think it could ever have been without him there. I know that many, if not all, of you feel the same. No other person I've ever known has ever been so willing to put their lives on the line to save others or to sacrifice his time and safety to make others' lives easier. The fact of the matter is," and Arthur paused, steeling himself, "Merlin has a place in my heart that I don't think anyone else has ever held. He got there through bravery, a faith in me that I often didn't deserve, and a willingness to help me until the day he died. He told me that, once. In those very words: that he was happy to be my servant until he died.

"Truth is, I think that was the best way he could tell me what he really meant to say: that he was happy to be a friend, an adviser, an ally, a fellow warrior against whatever threatened Camelot and her people. _That_ was what he was happy to be until he died. That's what he died as, among all of us. No matter your station, your occupation, or your origin, Merlin could be your friend. For many, he was our family."

Arthur wiped away some tears and cleared his throat.

"Now, I'd like to open the podium to anyone who would like to say their own thoughts on this day. Thank all of you for coming to—"

A murmur swept through the crowd— interested, at first, but then fearful and anxious as someone forced their way into the town square through the Lower Town entrance. Arthur couldn't identify them, certainly not from the distance separating him and them, but he could tell that they were bloodied and frantic. Their leather armor— if it was leather armor— was torn in several places and their hair was in total disarray.

 _"Martha!?"_ screamed Dame Tane, a few yards away from where Arthur was standing. He watched as she shouldered her way through the crowd of people to her wife. "Martha, what are you doing here?"

"It's the army," replied Martha, though she said it so everyone in the square could hear her. "The mercenary army is only ten or fifteen minutes away from our gate. I only just got away quick to tell you. If we don't do anything soon, they'll take the city easily."

She leaned heavily into her wife, who picked her up and hurried back over to Arthur and the knights.

Before she even reached them, however, Arthur had already begun to set orders to each one of them men closest to him. "Lancelot, get your recent trainees together, I want you to do crowd control. Get all the non-combatants somewhere as safe as possible; I don't care where." With a nod, Lance started shouting to every peasant he'd been working with over the past month and a half. "Leon, find every one of the other knights, get them into minimal armor and prepare them for defense of the citadel. Give four or five of them to Elyan. They'll be guarding our resources in case we end up under siege." Elyan and Leon thundered away, calling for the knights in the crowd. "Percival and Gwaine, I need you to stay with me for the time being. If anything happens and I need you somewhere else, I'll send you off to other tasks. But you need to stay alert and help me to do two things: evacuate anyone still in the castle and to see if the mercenary army has any sorcerors. Sound good?"

Elysande finally got to Arthur and leaned Martha against the stone wall of the steps. "Have you got anyone to sound the bell?"

"No," Arthur replied, his voice clipped with tension. "Could you do that for me?"

"Easily."

But instead of running off to the bell tower, Dame Tane shot a stream of red flags into the air. She waited for barely a moment before the sound of bells crashing anxiously filled the air.

A peasant, who Arthur quickly realized was actually a Security Council agent in plain-clothes, came up to the five of them— Arthur, Gwaine, Percival, Dame Tane, and Martha— and se gave a shallow bow. On hir hand was a curious bladed glove. As se curled and uncurled hir fist, the blades went up and down.

"Sir, we're ready for any formation at the moment. Just give the word, and we'll move into it. Stevenson is currently monitoring the gate and I left Alandottir and Smith on the turrets with crossbows, but beyond that no one has a position. What are your orders?"

Without a second's hesitation, Dame Tane replied, "Defensive 2-B. Make sure you have a solid guard on every major entrance."

"Yessir. Right away."

Then se sprinted away, hollering "Def 2-B, everyone! Defensive 2-B!" More agents with odd, experimental weapons shot off in different directions. Arthur was interested to note that these people were mostly the people who'd come into the square in small groups earlier.

"You have a really good handle on your people," Arthur complimented.

"I should hope so, I spent months working out formations with them. I would hope they retain at least some of it."

“Guys,” Gwaine cautioned, “this is great, but for goodness’ sake remember that there is a very dangerous army made up of mercenaries who is probably five minutes from our doorstep, optimistically speaking. Let’s get moving!”

Dame Tane picked up her wife and slung Martha around her shoulders in a fireman’s carry. She held on to Martha with one hand and held her warhammer in the other. Percival and Gwaine drew their swords and flanked her and Arthur, who had Excalibur out and at the ready. Together, the small entourage charged back into the castle, hoping that they could get everyone to safety and keep the citadel and intact as possible. Come hell or high water, Camelot would not fall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> K SO! Explanation time! I might be forgetting some things but here's everything (basically):
> 
> The Alice in Wonderland reference: I love T. H. White's _The Once and Future King_ so I kinda worked in Merlin's "living backward" thing as he has a few anachronistic "impressions" of the future. Of course, this is totally just a headcanon and all that, but I like the idea that Merlin has a lot of totally useless pop culture knowledge from the future.
> 
> The reason people have weird technology that is absolutely not era relevant: like, my dudes, FUCK the proper era! There's magic already! I think I put a mechanical gun in there somewhere! There's unreasonable good hygiene! And y'all want me to stick with an approved timeline? Nah, there was some Rube Goldberg mice pranks a few chapters ago. For all intents and purposes, this isn't happening on Earth.
> 
> Now that all of that is out of the way, let me just say:
> 
> We have like 3 chapters left! The next is going to be a little weird, perspective speaking, but I promise it'll tie up most loose ends we've got left over. After that we've got a little more angst (yeah, ikr, "no, not more!" sorry yea it goes down to the wire) and then just some happiness and then that's it! That's all! There's nothing else in this universe that I've got lined up! It's been an actual year, and only now are we actually finishing it. I feel so accomplished and stuff, it's wild. What a way to kick depression in the ass.
> 
> Thanks for reading, y'all! Please drop kudos and/or comments, please and preemptive thank you!


	24. Face Off part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for slight body horror!
> 
> Also, your boy has multiple close shaves and Arthur and the traveler share the mic for once

**~ M ~**

Arthur had left.

Arthur had been told of the impending attack and walked back into the castle.

Though a voice in the traveler’s head nagged that couldn’t be the full story, he swallowed his disappointment and focused on the task at hand. Namely, almost the entire population of Camelot in one enclosed space, all of them about to be attacked by mercenaries who’d killed someone to send a message on Camelot’s bloody doorstep, in the most literal way possible. Could he protect them? Or would he face total exhaustion and not be able to do anything else? What about—?

As fearful hypotheticals clouded the traveler’s mind, screams polluted the air around him.

 _Camelot,_ whispered the part of his brain not paralyzed by wild what-ifs. _These people are Camelot. Save them, because there is more than Arthur. Without Camelot, Arthur is not the king, of now nor of the future. Camelot is more than Arthur._

“Camelot is more than Arthur,” the traveler whispered. Someone said something (Gwen? Morgana?), but the traveler took no notice.

Barely realizing what he was doing, he strode to the center of the town square. Little more than the rough wood of his cane, so like Kilgharrah’s scales, kept him grounded as he sifted through the magic surrounding him. There was life in it— _human_ life. Perhaps… 

The traveler _tugged_ at it, and the living magic gave itself to him. He could almost see it all flowing towards him in golden tendrils. It was warm and individual and rejuvenating like the motherly hospitality of the common folk. It was protective and stalwart and selfless like the knights in and out of battle, swords always at the ready. He could feel Lancelot and Gwen and Morgana and Gaius, their hearts beating out of rhythm but in a comforting symphony that meant home and family.

With one ragged breath, the traveler projected the security into a spell which cascaded from his body in waves until it reached the edge of the town square.

As soon as the building power left him, the shocked noises of the citizens of Camelot finally reached his ears. They all backed away from him, staring at the gilded dome of magic as it pulsed and strengthened. Someone hissed, “sorceror!” and someone else called to arrest him, but no one did anything. Typical.

A few people, though, whispered instead about a fire nine months ago which had been put out by a sorceror—was it this one?—and left everyone in the market still alive. So maybe… 

“Please, citizens of Camelot!” the traveler cried. Only those closest to him looked like they had any idea what he was saying. With another glint of golden eyes, he amplified his voice and made it like siren song. _Try ignoring this,_ he thought. “Please, for your own sakes, listen to what I have to say. I am not a threat to you nor do I have any malicious intent for you. This is my home too. All I want to do is keep everyone safe.”

“What is this, then?!” demanded an old woman as she jabbed her finger towards the sky.

“A shield, I swear. You can leave it if you like, but I’ve made this courtyard the safest I can. No one can come in, and once you leave you won’t be able to enter again.” He climbed, with a great deal of difficulty, on top of a large rock that was part of the funeral display. “It’s fueled by your care for each other, your willingness to do good. It will stay up for as long as you maintain that or we, as a collective, choose to take it down. I swear, this shield will protect you all for as long as you are willing to protect each other. And, if I know all of you as I think I do, this shield will never come down.

“I can understand your fear, both of the army and of me. But leave your pitchforks for _after_ our current catastrophe, will you? We’re on a bit of a tight schedule and don’t have much time to diffuse that.” A few people laughed at that. The traveler grinned. “If anyone has any idea who could be responsible for this, your help is appreciated.”

“What are you, the king?”

“Goddess, no. Do I really seem like that much of a cabbage head?” More people laughed this time, and the shield glowed brighter. “No. I just think we can do this, or some of it, by ourselves.”

“You’re Emrys, aren’t you” called someone from a pack of the more druidic people. The traveler realized they’d been some of the first to laugh at his jokes. Was there a point in denying it? They’d listen to him if he said he was… 

“Yes, I am. But I need to know if anyone knows who to go after to halt this attack, so let’s focus for now.”

He swept his gaze over the crowd and his eyes met Gaius’. _Shit._ The old physician had eyes like tea saucers and the traveler could see tears in his eyes even from where he was. There was no one else that connected ‘Merlin’ and ‘Emrys,’ though.

He really was only his magic, wasn’t he.

To his great surprise, several people came forward about seeing a suspicious man sneaking around the town at night and going in and out of town. With a bit of prodding, they went into more detail. In fact, the traveler was able to get a pretty good idea of what the man looked like, especially after using pollen to make faces in the air until it was deemed accurate.

“Holy _fucking shit,”_ declared Morgana. The whole square turned to face her. “That’s fucking Dennis. What the fuck.”

“Who the hell is Dennis?” the same old lady who’d questioned the shield barked.

The traveler beckoned to her and Morgana joined him on the rock.

“This man,” she pointed at the pollen figure, “stole my magic from me. This man has one goal—the capture of Camelot and accumulation of power, by any means possible. He is calling himself the Duke of Dore, though that’s not true. He’s a man from a village who makes little gadgets and he is clever enough to use anyone long enough to drain them dry. I know this man, and we can defeat him. Or rather,” Morgana smiled at the traveler, “Emrys can.”

For a few seconds, deafening silence smothered the massive horde of people. Then a cheer rang out from one corner and spread like wildfire through the crowd. It struck the traveler that only rarely did the citizens of Camelot have any control over their fates, so often did other mythical beings step in to meddle in it. Arthur rarely consulted with them unless they were affected directly and most of the news was along the lines of “we have a problem” and then “we have solved the problem,” with little to no other detail. But now, everyone in the square had taken destiny into their own hands, with no cryptic dragons or supposedly helpful figures of myth to play with them like marionettes.

“This is our city!” the traveler shouted. “It is ours, and we belong to it in turn! We can save it and we _will,_ come hell or high water!”

“Come hell or high water!” echoed the crowd.

Morgana took the traveler by the hand and they raised their clasped hands to the sky in solidarity, beaming like the very sun was pouring out of their faces. It had been a long time in coming, but they knew for certain that Camelot was home and they could not abandon her.

**~ A ~**

For all the people who had been too late in getting to the town square or were worried about sunburns and sunstroke, windows had been the viewing avenue of choice. This meant that there were tons of kids (mostly the children of servants and cooks) who were still inside the citadel. There were only so many places to put them but they could be scattered anywhere in the castle, which made for a terrifying game of capture-the-flag with, by Percival’s estimate, 346 flags.

Arthur had spent about five minutes racing around the castle trying to find flag #163 (Percival had corralled most of them early on and most of the kids knew where to find the others, so it was only a few stragglers that they were having trouble rounding up), only to find her still peering out a window at the courtyard.

“Hey, um,” Arthur tried to think of how to address her, “you. We need to get you out of here, okay? Let’s get you somewhere safe.”

‘Arthur, ask her name. There’s no reason to be rude,’ Merlin’s ghost chided.

“No,” replied the girl.

‘Be delicate with this, Arthur.’

“What? Really, we need to get downstairs. We need to keep you safe.” Arthur pulled her arm away from the window gently. She yanked it back from him.

‘That’s not the kind of delicacy I was recommending.’

“No! I want to watch!”

Fighting a groan, Arthur pulled at his face. “Watch _what?_ Everyone should be out by now. Get back from the window and let’s go downstairs, where you’re safe and the knights are able to _protect_ you.”

“No, no, no! Look!”

“Listen, do you know who I am? Just do as I ask.”

The little girl stuck her tongue out at him. “Do you know who _I_ am?”

“No.”

Merlin’s ghost groaned. ‘This is why you ask, Arthur. Come on, be a little more polite.’

“It’s…” she moved her arm back and forth between herself and Arthur and tried to sound out a word, “m-mutual? So,” and her mockery was clear, “just do as _I_ ask.”

Grudgingly, Arthur looked out the window at the square below.

‘Oh god,’ Merlin’s voice said. ‘Arthur, don’t overreact. Just stay calm now. Just stay calm.’

“What the fuck…” Arthur muttered, forgetting for a second both his resolution to swear less and to be a good role model to children. The little girl looked at him in surprise and started giggling.

“Fuck!” she chirped back at him, startling a laugh out of Arthur. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!”

‘Look what you’ve done now.’

As silly as she was and as silly as he felt with Merlin’s commentary, Arthur couldn’t look away from the town square. The sorceror was floating— _floating,_ for god's’ sake—with shimmering light gathered in his hands like a mass of string going in every direction. What was he doing?

“You can see it too!”

Arthur nearly snapped his neck as he turned to look at the little girl.

“Are you saying not everyone can see…” Arthur waved at the square, not sure how to describe it. “That?”

The little girl giggled again. “Of course not! Mommy says it’s another sight. Daddy hasn’t got it, but I got it and so does Hugh. And so do you!”

‘Please don’t hurt this kid, Arthur. She’s not doing anything wrong!’

Arthur wished he could do more than placate Merin temporarily, but he was rather occupied with another matter at hand: seeing magic. Seeing magic? How possible was that, Arthur wondered. How often was it mistaken for actual sorcery and those with that ability executed for being able to see more than others were? He shook his head. Not the time. Later, but not now.

“Look! He’s using it now!”

Turning back to the square, Arthur watched a golden dome encase the town square. He couldn’t see through it.

“What is that! What is he doing!” Fear clawed at his stomach. Gwen was down there, same as Gaius and most of his people. And the sorceror, no matter how benevolent he’d seemed, had just trapped them all. They were sitting ducks, and Arthur didn’t know if he could even do anything about it.

“It feels like Mommy’s hugs and the way Hugh braids my hair and how Daddy picks me up. I think it’s a nice one.” The little girl had closed her eyes and kicked her legs as she balanced her stomach on the window sill. Arthur steadied her, making sure she wouldn’t fall. “Yes, I think it’s a very nice one. Like what you use as a knight, you know? A shield but better and safer and made of home.”

As Arthur felt the tension drain from his shoulders, it was replaced with a sense of familiar calm, like Merlin’s teasing and Gwen’s smiles. Merlin’s ghost breathed a sigh of relief.

“Okay. Now that we’ve seen that, can we go downstairs?”

If the little girl was to be believed (and why would she lie?), there was no danger in the town square and no reason to linger. Fortunately, the little girl agreed this time and allowed Arthur to pick her up so he could run through the halls faster.

Finally, he got back to the dungeons. They were one of the most secure places in the castle, fortified as they were against most breakout attempts.

“There’s something you have to see,” Arthur declared to his knights, setting down Leslie, as she’d revealed her name was on the run over. She hadn’t been interested in Arthur’s, which he counted as a blessing. After casually discussing magic to the king of Camelot, he had a feeling she wouldn’t feel as safe as she did.

“Be right there!” called Gwaine from the back of the dungeons. “And you should know, Elysande is doing a sweep of the castle so she’ll probably be back in half an hour or so.”

“What is it?” Percival asked. He guided Leslie into a group of other kids, clearly not prioritizing Arthur.

“It’s the town square. It’s… I don’t know if I can do it justice. You’ll have to see it.”

Percival raised his eyebrows, imitating Gaius almost perfectly. “Sure. In a good way or a bad way? In a ‘it’s going to get us killed’ way or in a ‘the majesty is unparalleled’ sort of way?”

“Hopefully the second one, but there’s always a chance of the first,” Arthur conceded. “Come on, we can’t waste time.”

Gwaine jogged out from the back, tailed by a couple of the older kids. One, a stocky girl nearly as tall as Arthur, carried a massive slat of wood (“to bar the door,” Gwaine explained). She was flanked by slightly smaller kids with makeshift weapons. They held themselves like thugs guarding their boss and Arthur tried not to laugh.

Gwaine and Percival joined Arthur outside the cell area, briefly reiterated to the kids how they should defend themselves should someone come in, and followed Arthur towards a gate to the square.

They were met at the door by a gold bubble that shifted and shimmered like an oil spill. Percival gaped, apparently not concerned or overly unnerved by the magic that could not possibly be more obvious, only astounded by it. Gwaine, on the other hand, decided to walk directly into it, for reasons Arthur couldn’t even fathom. Before Arthur was able to tell him how bad of an idea that was, the barrier sucked in like a trampoline and then spat him back out. Gwaine narrowly avoided slamming into the wall. Arthur went to help him up but chuckled all the same.

“That was very stupid of you,” he laughed.

“I’m sorry, do you have a better idea?”

Arthur rolled his eyes. “I’m king, aren’t I?”

“Arthur,” Gwaine groaned, “that’s _nothing._ You don’t know anything special because you’re the king.”

Gwaine had backed him into a corner. Rolling his eyes again, Arthur went up to the dome and knocked on it. He waited to be thrown across the room too, but it never happened. Instead, the dome faded almost imperceptibly and Arthur’s knuckles fell through on the second knock.

Keeping his hand in the glittering membrane of the dome to hold it open, he looked back at Gwaine and Percival. “I told you I had an idea. Come on!”

“That wasn’t an idea,” Gwaine whined, “that was luck.”

He and Percival sped through the force field, as if worried it would solidify at any moment. Arthur grinned and sauntered inside behind them.

The membrane became opaque again as soon as he no longer touched it and Arthur pulled back, almost charmed by the thoughtfulness of the sorceror as he’d made the shield. A force field with an automatic door—how polite.

But for all that the force field was, it didn’t prepare him for what was inside it.

**~ M ~**

After everyone’s initial shock of having not one, but _two_ sorcerors in their midst wore off and they settled down after the traveler’s speech, they set to making a plan for how to defend the citadel. Few of the citizens who’d stayed in the square were at all prepared for combat, so they had to be very clever about what they were doing, rather than simply running around with sharp objects as Arthur probably would’ve preferred.

Out of the corner of his eye, the traveler saw Gaius heading towards him. He turned to the woman closest to him, a member of the board of Camelot’s Child Refuge named Zhane who’d been waiting to get a word in as he listened to a merchant worry about his wares, and gestured for her to start talking.

“There are at least one hundred of our kids in the citadel, Emrys. All of them outside of your shield,” she explained. The citizens had all taken to calling him Emrys and it felt… odd, to say the least. The traveler couldn’t quite define the squirming in his gut.

“We’ll need to get them to safety,” he agreed.

“Yes, and any other children in there. I know lots of parents worried that the kids might get overheated out here, so there have to be something like…,” she screwed up her face in concentration, “two-fifty to three hundred in there, maybe more. I don’t know where they might have run to when the bell rang—we didn’t exactly have drills inside the castle.”

“Mer—” Gaius interrupted. The traveler twitched, but otherwise resisted acknowledging his old mentor.

“I’ll see what I can do about that. I can cast a transmitting armor spell on a few people, if they’ll volunteer to go in. It might slow you down a bit, but you’ll—”

“Merlin,” Gaius said again.

“—be able to protect anyone you come in contact with. Can you sort out who goes inside?”

“I have some people in mind,” Zhane replied, giving Gaius a strange look.

“Wonderful,” said the traveler, still resolutely ignoring Gaius. “Get back to me when you have them and I’ll cast the spell. And please tell them beforehand about the spell.”

Zhane rushed away and started shouting for a few people.

“Merlin, I need to talk to you,” Gaius insisted.

“His memorial is behind you. I didn’t think you were _that_ old,” Morgana snapped as she passed. The traveler shot her a look comprised of a mix of gratitude and reproach, but Gaius didn’t seem to be convinced.

“Merlin, this is ridiculous. You’ve been here all along?”

With a deep breath, the traveler turned around, his face steel. “I am not Merlin. There is no one here by that name. We’re all here because of that very fact. I told you when I first met you, I don’t have a name. Emrys is one given to me, and I don’t usually share it. So I don’t know what’s possessed you, but I am not Merlin, just as I was not involved in his death or disappearance or whatever. Now, I am still needed to get everyone safe and maintain this spell. If you still want to bring this up later, feel free.”

He had to keep Gaius from interfering, just until he was out of Camelot. The old city always drew him back into its orbit, back to Arthur, and it would be the death of him unless he escaped its gravity.

Gaius grumbled something under his breath and the traveler didn’t pursue it. He went back to trying to think of the most effective defensive plan. He’d been with Arthur at enough war meetings, or so he hoped, to figure it out. But he didn’t know where the mercenaries were or what their goal was. So he couldn’t tell what they were likely to attack or what tactics they might employ. But, if they were led by Dennis, then maybe… 

The traveler fought through the crowd of the square to find Morgana, who was talking quietly with Gwen. They both looked up as he approached, and the traveler couldn’t persuade himself to decipher their expressions.

“I need to talk to you,” he said to Morgana, as vague as possible.

“Sure. What about?”

“Ana, we need to talk alone.” He glanced to Gwen and back to Morgana, hoping his friend would pick up on the clue.

She froze and slipped her hand out of Gwen’s grip. “I see. Let’s go.”

“Hang on,” said Gwen, “what’s this about? Why’s Ana scared?” 

Morgana patted Gwen’s shoulder. “It’s just some private stuff. I’m not scared, I just need to go talk to Emrys. Don’t worry.” She pulled away before Gwen could hold her back, and she followed the traveler to the edge of the shield. Once he stopped, she crossed her arms and lifted her chin. “Now, what _is_ this about? What couldn’t you say around Gwen? Does it have to do with you leaving?”

The traveler shook his head. “No, not anything like that. I just figured you wouldn’t want to discuss your activities with Dennis around Gwen.”

Morgana’s expression turned venomous.

“And why, _precisely,_ is that relevant at this time?”

“Because it can be reasonably concluded that Dennis is responsible for this attack, and you were planning something with him. Or I think you were. I never asked you properly about it, but it’s not a huge leap.” The traveler shifted, nervous. “What were you and Dennis planning to do? What is likely his target?”

Morgana drooped and looked away. “We were… planning to take your magic, Emrys. I think I told you that, once, when you found me… But I barely remember that. All the same, we were certain that you’d be with Arthur because that’s where you always are—or were, anyways, so we planned on deposing Arthur and reigning over Camelot, thus freeing the magicians. I figured that if we managed to drain you of your power, Camelot would be defenseless against us. Nothing would keep us from our goal, so long as you were out of commission. But…”

“To do that, you would have killed me.”

“I know that _now,_ but we hadn’t really discussed everything six months ago as we have since.”

The traveler hummed. “Why didn’t Dennis take you with him? Why not bring one of the most powerful sorcerors alive along to a conquest? It doesn’t make sense to leave you alone, much less betray you.”

Morgana shook her head. “No, no, you said it yourself.” She sighed again. “What makes me—both of us, really—useful is our magic, not our minds or who we are or anything like that. All Dennis needed was my power, and he took that with his awful little device. And anyways,” her voice turned bitter, “he told me I’d already failed too many times to be useful this time around.”

“Oh. I see.” He cleared his throat. “Well, at least we know that Dennis’ll probably be targeting Arthur and trying to find me.”

“Maybe he’ll try to get at the throne room,” Morgana suggested. “If nothing else, it’s a symbol of sovereignty. And that’s more than enough to make it a target.” She winked. “Take it from someone who knows.”

Before the traveler could properly respond, something yanked at his magic. There was only a second of relief before it was pulled at again, this time sustained and painful. But it was also familiar and welcome, in a sort of self-destructive way. The touch, the _pull,_ on his power alluring and the traveler found himself welcoming it.

“Emrys!” shrieked someone near the center of the square. “Your shield failed! They’re here!”

“I’m on my way!” the traveler shouted back. He frowned at his cane; he wouldn’t be able to walk over there quickly enough. Sighing, he gritted his teeth and blinked to the gate. The people around him jumped. “Get back! I’ll take them.”

A swarm of mercenaries dressed in dark colors flooded the gates and surrounded the traveler, who did his best to ignore them as he reshaped the shield. The gold skin settled around him and the mercenaries, cutting them off from the citizens in the rest of the square. There was a chance the traveler could die, he realized. More than that, he didn’t want it to happen. After months, he didn’t want to die anymore. A smile carved itself into his face.

“It’s nice to finally meet all of you,” he said to the mercenaries, “I’ve heard so much about you.”

“Who the fuck are you?”

The smile widened into a Cheshire grin and the traveler turned around and around to take in the warriors around him. “I’m the Lord Emrys. I am the last dragonlord. I am the guardian of Camelot. And I’m going to kick your asses to kingdom come.”

They rushed him.

A few blades whipped at him. Someone screamed. He fell to a kneel and slammed his scarred hand to the ground.

Thunder rolled out from his hand. Lightning snapped at the mercenaries. They were carried on the storm until the wave crashed. There was a collective ‘crunch.’ And all the while, the traveler grinned.

His magic was _free,_ more free than it had ever been before. _This_ was what power was, not lazily making pollen faces and hiding away from the world. He would be present now and he would be _seen,_ so long as he had his way. He’d never hide his magic again. This was power, and he’d keep hold of it until he no longer had to.

With a flick of his wrist, the mercenaries’ weapons freed themselves from the belts of their masters and joined him in the eye of the storm. The metal all glowed blue and purple and crackled with electricity. All perfect gifts for his friends, were they not?

Someone groaned, as if they might be waking up, and the traveler sent a gust of wind to force the mercenaries out of the square. He pulled the membrane of the shield back around him and was greeted by raucous applause and cheers. The traveler brought a hand to his head and tried not to betray how lightheaded he was feeling.

“My friend!” Morgana’s hand came to rest on his back. “You were magnificent. Are you okay now?”

“Oh Ana, I’m definitely burning out fast. But if we can end it all, I’ll have plenty of time to rest with the druids.” He pushed himself up with the cane and waved at it. “I should’ve used this, shouldn’t I. It would’ve made everything a lot easier, I imagine.”

Morgana shook her head. “You idiot.”

“Ah, the one nickname I can never escape.”

“It’s the one nickname you always deserve.”

Before the traveler could respond, Arthur pushed his way through the crowd.

**~ A ~**

The square, Arthur found, was _organized._ It almost looked like Arthur’s own council, save for the fact that not many of the people there wore precious metals. But he barely had a moment to process it all before someone screamed, “Emrys!” and Arthur was moving for the sorceror, who was talking to Ana-almost-certainly-Morgana a little ways away from Arthur.

‘Don’t do anything rash,’ cautioned Merlin’s ghost.

The sorceror—Emrys, now, not a nameless criminal any longer—turned towards the scream, called “I’m on my way!”, and disappeared.

Then there was some yelling about lords, a thunderclap, and a flash of purple light. Arthur wasn’t quite sure what that was, but he had an inkling that it was related to the thunder under a clear sky and also Emrys’ doing.

He shoved his way through the crowd of people and barely caught the end of Ana’s sentence. Emrys was standing, looking about the same as he ever did. But… 

‘Arthur, look at his side.’

“What’s that?” he demanded, gripping Emrys’ left shoulder.

Wincing, Emrys replied, “If you mean what I think you mean, then it was magic, Arthur. Calm down.”

“No, no, I got that. But what _happened_ to your side?”

Emrys looked down and to Arthur’s chagrin, considering the bloody stain on his left side, only shrugged. “It’s not my blood. I don’t think anything happened to my side. But I’ll reiterate: calm down.”

Probably-Morgana butted in with, “How’d you get in here?” and hissed something to Emrys that Arthur didn’t hear.

“The gold thing—”

“The shield,” Emrys deadpanned.

“—let me in. I don’t know why—”

“Ha! Called it! Pay up,” Morgana crowed.

“—but it sure liked me better than Gwaine,” Arthur finished, glancing between Morgana and Emrys, confused.

 _“That’s_ what that was! Huh,” murmured Emrys. “Just one more reason, I guess.”

“One more reason to _what?”_

‘That’s a bad sign,’ grumbled Merlin’s ghost.

Emrys shrugged. “It’s not important. But I got you an goodbye present, which I think should be far more interesting.” Out of the mass of glowing metal, Emrys pulled a sparking sword. “Be careful with it. I’m not really sure what it might do, since I enchanted it accidentally. Just think of it as a little science experiment, and if we both survive, you can tell me the results.”

Morgana grinned. “Do I get one?”

“Yes, and Gwen too, if she wants one. And anyone else. There’s more than enough.”

Arthur compared the new sword to Excalibur. They were about the same in length, but Excalibur was undoubtedly better quality. The enchanted one wasn’t as embellished or polished and the metal had been eaten away a bit. But it was still the one out of the two swords that crackled with magical lightning, so Arthur could help but concede that advantage.

“…Thanks,” Arthur said at last.

“Anytime,” came the reply, as if they did this everyday.

“Arthur, come on! Elysande’s trying to talk to us, but I don’t know what she’s saying. We gotta go back in and see what she needs.” Gwaine skidded to a stop, Percival at his heels. “She made the urgent sign, but I can’t understand the rest of her codes.”

Percival tapped Gwaine on the shoulder, shaking his head. “That’s not true. You understood when she signed ‘emergency,’ ‘ASAP,’ and whatever you explained as ‘disaster waiting to happen.’ You’re pretty competent with her codes.”

“Sure,” Gwaine replied, winking, “competent enough to talk dirty in them.”

‘Oh good god,’ Merlin’s ghost groaned.

Arthur sighed. “Stay on task, will you?”

Emrys coughed and pointed at the castle’s third floor. “She’s still there. We can go without compromising the shield; I designed it to allow people to exit, but not let things in. If we all go in to sort this out, everyone out here will be okay. I need to give people a few spells before we go in, but after that…” He looked to Morgana, who only nodded to him. “After that, we’ll be ready to go.”

Percival and Gwaine gave a thumbs up together, but Arthur stopped in his tracks. “‘We?’ You’re not coming with us.”

‘Arthur,’ Merlin’s ghost said, ‘be reasonable. He can help.’

Emrys only rolled his eyes. “Now is not the time to be petty, Arthur. I can help.”

“That’s not my objection!” Arthur stalked closer to the sorceror, who stalked right back. “You’ve made it more than clear that you want to leave as soon as possible, so why help? And what about all that you’re hiding?” Emrys paled and jerked away. “Why didn’t you tell me you found something? I had to hear it from _Gwaine!_ You’re just…” Arthur curled his fingers in and out of a fist and popped his knuckles. “You’ve never been honest with us, coming in and out of my city as you like and you never give me any answers. How can I trust you here, in battle, when you won’t trust me in peace?”

“Listen here, Arthur Pendragon,” answered Emrys in a deadly voice. It was quiet but not soft, anything but soft. It was hissing and reptilian, as if summoned from the depths of his throat. It was worse than any kind of yelling. “We are in battle. Maybe I have answers for you, maybe I don’t. But as for how you can trust me,” his voice lowered as he uncurled Arthur’s fist and held it, “I’d say you don’t really have a choice.”

There was something in Emrys’ eyes that were familiar, or Arthur thought so for a second before there were _definitely_ were tears. He caught something that sounded like ‘before’ and then Emrys turned away.

“If you really refuse my help, I’ll go in on my own. But I’m going to help, whether I have you at my back or not.” He looked over his shoulder. “If you go in without me, at least it’ll be like old times.”

He stormed away to Morgana, who’d retreated to Gwen’s side, two swords in her hands. They exchanged a few words that Arthur couldn’t hear and he turned away as well, back to his knights. Gwaine looked puzzled, almost like he was thinking harder than he ever had for as long as Arthur’d known him. It wasn’t that Gwaine was stupid, but his impulse control barely existed and his intelligence lay more in strategy than in reasoning. Percival only stared at Emrys’ back, his jaw tight.

“Do either of you know where Lance is?” Arthur asked, trying to keep them from dwelling. Gwaine shook his head.

“No idea. I don’t think he’s in here; we would’ve seen him, right?”

“Probably,” Percival agreed.

“So he’s outside of the shield. That makes sense, would you concur?” Arthur looked around the square. “I don’t see a lot of his guards either. He probably gave them orders and then headed out himself. I’m willing to bet he’s in the opposite direction we need to head to.”

“I don’t think there’s time to wait for him,” Percival gestured to the third floor window. “Elysande still needs an immediate response.”

“Maybe we could get Emrys to summon all the knights here?” Arthur proposed.

‘For goodness’ sake, Arthur,’ said Merlin’s ghost, ‘why don’t you ask him like a normal person instead of ‘getting him’ to do it? Be polite!’

Arthur only clenched his jaw. He couldn’t start talking to a voice only he could hear in the middle of a conversation.

“No offence, princess,” Gwaine drawled, “but I don’t think you’re in any position to demand _anything_ from him. Not after what you said to him. And I don’t know if he can do that. Wouldn’t he be tired after the shield?” Gwaine waved a hand at the sky. “This thing seems pretty complex, and he said he _designed_ it. That can’t be something you can just…” He flourished his hands again. “Boom.”

“From what I’ve heard about Emrys, he _can_ do that,” Percival countered.

“Whatever you’ve heard is at least five times more than I’ve heard,” said Arthur. “What do you know?”

Percival looked back at the castle, but shrugged and launched into an explanation. “Emrys is a druid story. There’s prophecies involving him and also a king, and he’s supposed to free magic. In other words, he’s supposed to reverse your father’s one main law and heal the scars left behind as his legacy.” He shrugged again and rubbed the back of his neck. “That’s how it was told to me, at least.”

Arthur stood, frozen, for a beat and then shepherded Percival and Gwaine to the edge of the square. “Where the hell did you learn that?”

“You don’t have to answer,” Gwaine whispered to Percival.

“No, but I’d really rather he did. How do you know any of that?”

Percival looked down at Gwaine and then at Arthur. “I traveled a lot, you know. Lancelot and I were swords-for-hire for a couple years. And…” He looked back to Gwaine and swallowed. Arthur felt his heart tighten with suspicion as Percival’s Adam’s Apple bobbed. “My mother was a druid. She taught me a lot, though I never had the talent for even hedge-magic. I never broke the law, sire.”

Surprising even himself, Arthur said, “It wouldn’t matter if you did. It’s not the law anymore. And even if it was, your parents don’t define you. I know I haven’t always seemed supportive of magic or even tolerant of it, but I’m trying to change that. And you’re my friend, Percival. Don’t worry. And I’m sorry that you felt unsafe. I wish I had been a better friend.”

“Hear hear!” cheered Gwaine. “Of us all, you’re the best evidence that you don’t have to be the same person your parents are. Pendragon senior would’ve run Percival through on the spot, but look at you.” He slugged Arthur in the shoulder, grinning.

“Thanks, sire,” Percival said, “but I don’t think that now is the time.”

“What—”

“Hey, cabbage-head.” Arthur jolted at Emrys’ voice. “Let’s get going. Are we the only people going, or did you just forget to get anyone else altogether?”

Arthur straightened up, meeting Emrys’ eyes. The man was just a few inches taller than Arthur, but Arthur hadn’t realized until now; the sorceror had a habit of crouching, leaning, stooping, or otherwise making himself smaller than he really was. Whether it was out of pain or out a desire for deception, Arthur wasn’t sure. But whatever the reason, he knew that this was the first time that he’d seen Emrys stand at his full height, despite the cane he was still relying on.

So something had changed.

Emrys snapped his fingers in Arthur’s face. “Come on now. Anyone at home? Now isn’t the time to blank out on me.”

“Sorry,” Arthur mumbled. Emrys raised an eyebrow at him, probably surprised. “About what I said earlier, that is.”

“Apology accepted,” replied Emrys cheerily. “I must say, I never expected an apology from you, much less one that included more than, say, two words. Congrats on getting your head out of your ass.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Gwaine butted in.

Emrys threw him a look, though Arthur couldn’t tell why, and said, “Now that we’ve met our quota of personal growth for the day, let’s get moving. Will you let me come with you now, or do I have to persuade you once more? We don’t have all day.”

“Yes, yes. Of course you may.” Arthur waved a hand. He swallowed and continued, “But, to that point, could you… uh…”

The sorceror rolled his eyes. “Could I _what,_ Arthur?”

“Could you summon my knights here?”

Emrys backed away. Clearly that wasn’t what he’d been expecting. His breath came quick and shallow as his arm flailed, as if searching for something to steady himself against. Unfortunately, there was nothing but air and he stumbled. “You want me to do _what?!”_ He heaved another breath. “That’s not snap-your-fingers simple, you prat! Summoning things— it’s a risk at the best of times. But summoning _people?_ I’ve never even attempted that. It could be just as dangerous to me as to the people I’ve summoning.”

“But your magic…” Percival trailed off.

“But my magic _what,_ Sir Knight? What about my magic! Why is it always my magic!” Emrys’ eyes glinted with the slightest hint of gold and storm clouds rolled in overhead in an instant, thunder bellowing along with it. Arthur waved the knights to step back a little and rested his hand on the pommel of his sword.

“Struck a little bit of a nerve, have we?” Gwaine muttered. Arthur shot him a glare and took a step in front of Gwaine, just to be sure.

Emrys noticed.

“Yeah, I thought so.” The clouds rumbled again. “I knew this would happen. I can’t believe I ever thought— No matter where I am, Arthur Pendragon, your father has poisoned any chance of honest friendship I have. And you’ve done nothing to make it better for anyone, anyone at all, across the kingdoms of Albion, which you’re supposed to fix! You’re the Once and Future King, Arthur, and Albion’s wellbeing is your responsibility. Yet, even among others like me, we’re all scared and hiding. You’re asking me to do something dangerous, and I’ve told you! I’m saying ‘no’ for your safety, and you have the nerve to tell me about _my_ magic? After years of knowing I’d be shunned for it?”

Rain started to come down in sheets and when Arthur head out a placating hand, a bolt of lightning—naturally colored this time—struck the bell tower, sending erratic peals clanging through everyone’s skulls.

“I’m sorry, okay?” Arthur said, still guarding Gwaine and Percival. “I know, two apologies in one day. Weird, isn’t it? Well, I am sorry.” The rain stopped midair and a collective gasp rang through the crowd. “I didn’t know how bad it was for you and everyone like you. I know that my father’s law and my inaction hasn’t been fair for you and your kin. But you saw the retraction; you even edited it! I _am_ trying to make it better, okay? I promise I’ll try to make it better.”

“And I didn’t mean to presume,” Percival piped up. “I just meant to say that your magic is very kind, from all I’ve heard. That’s all.”

Emrys stared with his mouth hanging open, flabbergasted. In a low voice, he hissed, “Percival, my magic isn’t… And you know who you’re talking in front of?” He jerked his chin towards Arthur, as if he was being subtle. “‘Experience teaches,’” he quoted, and then shut his mouth.

Arthur bristled. “I wouldn’t hurt my friend!”

“Well, I’m glad to hear you make exceptions when it could affect you!”

“Percival can’t even do magic, what law is he breaking anyways?”

“And what if he did, hmm?” Emrys stalked closer to Arthur, the _click-clack_ of his cane making him all the more threatening. “What if he could do magic? Say he’d been doing it since you met him. Him or Gwaine or even the man we’re holding a service for. What if they’d been doing magic in Camelot, under your nose, since ever?”

Morgana hurried over and tugged at Emrys’ shoulder. “Now isn’t the time, my friend.” He ignored her.

“Would you throw them out? Would you banish your friends from your kingdom, Arthur Pendragon, or would you let them burn at the stake? Would you have them hanged? Drawn and quartered? Would you have used thumbscrews, wrenching maybe? Strung them up on a strappado, perhaps? Or maybe you’d go old-fashioned and use the cat-of-nine-tails.” Emrys took his first breath in over half a minute, and then kept going. “I know what your father did, _Pendragon,”_ he spat Arthur’s family name out like a bad word, “and frankly, I thought you would’ve had a little bit more of a moral backbone! Not much, just enough to take some action!”

Morgana hesitated, as if struggling not to join in, before steering Emrys away. Arthur heard a few short sentences as she did. “You know antagonizing people is supposed to be my job. I don’t care what’s going on; you need to keep your head down and you clearly aren’t.” Emrys murmured something, and Morgana stopped dead. “He asked you to do _what?”_

Emrys said something else, a little louder, and Arthur caught, “You know that could kill them.”

The conversation continued in lower voices, but Arthur noticed something odd about how the sorceror was moving. He stiffened his arms and shook them out, clenching his fists. Something was off; something was wrong.

Arthur nodded at Gwaine, calling him closer.

“What is it?” Gwaine murmured once no one was likely to overhear them.

“Emrys. See how he’s moving his arms?” Arthur pointed as subtly as he could. “I think he’s having an attack. Can you make sure he’s okay?”

Gwaine shrugged. “Sure. But he’s got his friend, and she knows how to deal with it all a lot better than we do. Also, I’m not sure how much he’d appreciate me coming over, given the eruption we just had. Though I must say, better me than you.”

“Yes.” Arthur frowned at his feet, unhappy with himself. How could he have completely bungled a conversation that way? He was supposed to be better at speaking than that.

**~ M ~**

The traveler’s arms were burning. He could smell it. It was just like the aftermath of Kilgharrah’s attack on Camelot, with corpses lying in the street, roasted like a boar over holiday. But he didn’t need to deal with that right now, not when Morgana was talking to him with a tone that was very intent on being listened to. Focus was the key to getting through the day, and right now he needed to focus on Morgana.

“…just because you can’t sit down for five minutes and keep your head in the game doesn’t mean we can give up on Arthur, loathe as I am to admit it. We need to get in to the castle, and it’s safer for you to go in with the knights around.” She paused for breath, and then fixed the traveler with a glare. “Are you even paying attention to me? This is important!”

“Yeah, ‘Gana, yeah.” He winced at the burning, but carried on. “Listen, I get where you’re coming from, but can we go over to the side for a second?”

Her gaze sharpened. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes. Perfectly fine.”

Morgana looked at him incredulously, which said all the traveler needed to hear.

The traveler sighed. “I just want to have this conversation away from the three musketeers over there.” The traveler looked over his shoulder. Gwaine was getting closer. The traveler put a hand to Morgana’s back and herded her towards the edge of the town square. He stopped at the wall.

“Now, what’s wrong, my friend?”

The traveler sighed and sank to the cobblestones, careful not to let his arms touch anything or to look at them. It was bad enough that he could smell it as his skin melted off, he didn’t need to _see_ it too. “You know how Arthur asked me to…?”

Morgana nodded warily. “Yeah, what about it?”

“Do you think that I should have accepted?”

Morgana’s eyebrows shot up as far into her hairline as they would go. “Accepted?! We can’t be having second thoughts now, we’re in the middle of war!”

The traveler flailed his arms irritably. “Well, I _am_ having second thoughts! Dammit, I am! You said yourself it would be safer to go in with the knights. Would it not be far more safe to have _all_ of the knights instead of just three of them? I mean, in your tirade, you practically endorsed my summoning of the rest of the knights with your whole deal about ‘giving up on Arthur.’ My ears are nigh ringing just with your rant alone.” He settled a bit, holding his arms carefully out of sight. “So. Should I summon the knights here or shouldn’t I?”

Morgana let out an irritated huff and sat down next to the traveler. “Well…”

“Oh, I see,” the traveler quipped acerbically, “glad we’re certain of it.”

“Hush _up,_ will you?” She punched him in the shoulder playfully and wherever she touched him, it felt like frigid water, made all the colder by the fire igniting the rest of his arm. He tried to hold in a shriek, instead letting out a hissing noise like a kettle that was boiling over. Morgana turned more fully, concern written in the lines of her face. “Are you sure you’re alright?”

“It’s— it’s an attack. But it’s mild! Don’t worry about it.”

“Is that why you’re holding your arms funny?”

“…It hurts to touch them.”

“And you didn’t think to mention this?” Morgana hissed.

“I am functioning, ‘Gana. And besides: bigger fish.”

“There will be no fishing for you, my friend, if you keep throwing your health under the carriage.” She put her head in her hands and sighed. “You keep this up and you won't be _able_ to leave Camelot when Malleum comes. I wouldn’t put it past you to work yourself to death, or exhaustion at the very least.” She paused and looked up. “You’re still sure you want to leave?”

“Yeah, absolutely sure. If I stay around Arthur, I’ll reveal myself sooner or later, and I just— I can’t deal with that.” He winced. “Call me cowardly— Arthur would’ve done— but I don’t want to see what he thinks of me when I’m…,” the traveler looked over at the floral memorial, “him.”

They sat together quietly for a moment, but it passed quickly.

“Do you think I ought to summon the knights, ‘Gana?”

Morgana rolled her eyes. “Can I count on a lack of snide comments?”

“Yes.”

“In that case, allow me to lay out everything, as I see it. First, this is your decision, and I can’t make it for you. But I dont like it. You _might_ be safer if you have the knights next to you going in, and you _might_ be able to keep your old friends safer if they have more of them, safety in numbers and all that, but please, my friend, don’t.” Morgana grasped the traveler’s hands and clung to them. It hurt like dry ice and he couldn’t read her face as the traveler yanked his hands from her hold. “It could fucking kill you. It could kill Arthur’s knights. And if you think you shouldn’t do this, then I’ll follow your lead.”

The traveler hummed, turning it all over in his head. Morgana’s points, the endorsements and the objections, were possibilities. Yes, some of the possibilities were undoubtably more dire than the others, but still. “‘Gana, this seems like it comes from… personal experience.”

“It is.” She sighed. “I’ll explain everything, my friend.”

The traveler nodded guardedly.

“Back when I was still in my ‘megalomaniacal bitch’ phase, I had plenty of followers. I had an army, as you know well. I had _more than one_ army, as I expect you know full well. To get them all together on short notice, I used to do mass summonings. It was more than habit at the time; it was how these battles were planned. With that surprise, I was able to take many castles and forts held by my enemies.” Morgana laughed lightly. “We had a total of twenty-six deaths by summoning. Thirteen were shifted badly: one man had his eye was where his larynx belonged and he had intestines instead of arms. Twelve soldiers had a nervous sickness of some sort. They couldn’t take the strain of that sort of travel and their hearts just,” she spread her hands, “gave out.”

“And the last, ‘Gana?”

Morgana dropped her hands with a sigh. “She reacted badly to my magic. The morals of it, I suppose. What I was doing with it at the time. It was the first time she’d come into contact with my magic, so I couldn’t have known a spell like it would’ve hurt her. I admit, I didn’t really know any of the ones that died. Nor did I know the ones who got injured. But the last one who died… it hit me hard, my friend. Her death told me I had to be doing something wrong, if my own soldiers held such strong convictions in their souls about all I used my magic for.” She looked at the traveler, and he rather thought she looked a little sad. “Has anyone reacted like that to your magic?”

“Uther might’ve, but I didn’t get a chance to find out.” They exchanged glares.

“Well, they have to feel pretty strongly about you and your magic to react badly enough to die over it.” She glanced back to the crowd, grimacing as she saw Gwaine shoving his way through. “It’s like anything else, my friend. There has to be conviction.”

The traveler coughed and curled closer to the wall. “You, ah, you really think I can pull it off?”

Sighing, Morgana waved tiredly at him. “You care about these people, don’t you? So long as you do, they should be fine. You’ve got more than enough power.” She reached out to pat his shoulder but stopped herself. “If you _must_ do this, know that it’s safer for you and them if you get them to agree to come with you. Without their consent, they might struggle along the way. That opens both of you up to a greater risk.”

The traveler nodded, but he was squinting as if keeping things out of his eyes. His arms were beginning to smoke. It didn’t hurt as much as he expected his arms to if they were burning off. It wasn’t real, of course, and it was easier to realize that with how dull the pain was. What an odd thing to be thankful for: that pain wasn’t realistic. If he was being honest with himself, the traveler was pretty sure he had a cramp on his side. Why now, of all times, had his body decided to fall apart on him?

“Look lively, Gwaine’s almost here,” Morgana hissed.

“‘Gana, I do not have it in me to ‘look lively,’” the traveler rasped back. The smoke, false though it was, had ruined his voice.

He closed his eyes and put his head between his knees. Summon the knights? With a fire blazing on his arms and letting him smell his own melting flesh?

The traveler spent not a moment on deliberation before thrusting himself into a spell.

**~ A ~**

Gwaine was taking too long.

Sure, Morgana and Emrys had slipped into the crowd and come out who-knew-where, but how long could it take to look for them? It wasn’t like the town square was the size of the castle.

Arthur groaned and raked his hands through his hair again.

“Percival, how’s it looking?”

‘Come on, Arthur. Don’t ask stupid questions. It look likes shit right now.’ Merlin’s ghost was, apparently, a little annoyed.

“Well,” Percival replied mildly, “we wasted a lot of time arguing with Emrys. Elysande’s getting rather frantic. I can’t read her signals like Gwaine can, but I don’t think any of this looks good.”

Arthur kicked a rock and cursed at how it hurt. “If this keeps on, Percival, we’ll have to storm the castle ourselves, without even Gwaine to back us up.”

‘If you go do that— if you storm the castle with one knight and a Merlin— then I’m resigning.’ There was a short pause, and then Merlin’s ghost continued. ‘Of course, we’ll have to see how exactly I can resign from your head, but the effort will be worth it, don’t you think?’

Percival only shrugged.

From the far side of the square, Arthur saw three strands of light shimmer off into the distance. He smiled tightly. Maybe they had a fighting chance.

**~ M ~**

The magical field was a swirling mess, so far as the traveler was concerned. Maybe that was just the consequence of trying to summon something while his mind was affected by the curse, but the contamination that whipped against his magic… He was pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be there.

Fortunately, the threads that connected him to the knights shone through the maelstrom just fine, and he was able to pin down where Leon and Elyan were with ease. The two of them were standing at the entrances of the food store, their swords out. Elyan was in a fairly open area and had settled into a stance the traveler had seen when Arthur trained the knights on combating onslaughts, with his sword held almost horizontally and a shield that kept his torso and the uppermost parts of his legs from harm. The lustrous silver thread was tied around his soul. Leon, however, had more cover and was crouched in ambush. His soul was tethered to the red thread and it pulsed with adrenaline.

The traveler thought fondly of when he and Morgana had enchanted the mirrors.

Since Elyan and Leon weren’t very close together, the traveler wasn’t certain of his ability to summon them together. Which meant he needed to make a choice. Leon or Elyan?

The threads dimmed ever so slightly. But as neither knight had taken a sudden, life-threatening blow, the traveler inferred that he was just losing time. Leon, then. He’d need more time to adjust after a spell, given his childhood in Camelot. The traveler took a breath and exhaled, stilling the storm in the magical field to a manageable level.

He grabbed the thread and reeled himself in. Leon twitched, but stayed crouched. After a fleeting eternity, the traveler reached Leon and lay a hand on his soul, hoping.

Leon sprung out of his hiding spot, sword out, and called _“Who goes there?”_ to an empty hallway. His voice was distorted like an image through rippling water. _“Come out now. Face me!”_

“Sir Leon,” said the traveler, “please come with me. Arthur needs your help.”

Leon stilled, listening. He still had his sword out, but he looked more like he was looking for corporeal things than magical presences to talk to. His soul glowed brighter. _“Who’s there?”_

“It’s me, Sir Leon. The sorceror. Arthur asked me to summon you to him.” The traveler tugged on the thread, irritated. “If I take you with me without you agreeing to come, you could get hurt. I’m not risking that. So if you could come with me now, I’ll get you to Arthur and we can get this fucking show on the road.”

 _“How do I do that?”_ Leon asked, his voice wary.

“Just let me take you. As long as you’re okay with it, we shouldn’t run into any issues.”

After a moment of hesitation, Leon nodded, and the traveler tugged him into the magical field, albeit a little clumsily.

**~ A ~**

Arthur pushed through the crowd to the source of the threads, Percival close at his heels. Unsurprisingly, it was Emrys, though Arthur didn’t expect to see him curled in a ball on the ground. He seemed a little faded, too. Arthur could almost see the pattern of the wall through him.

Arthur looked to probably-Morgana. “What’s wrong with him?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s summoning your knights to you. He’s also in the middle of a fucking episode, so hell if I know how that’ll affect it. The good news, for you at least, is that he’ll do everything he can to keep your knights safe.”

“He’s not looking too great, princess,” Gwaine warned. “What do we do if he—”

A blinding flash of red light interrupted Gwaine and when it cleared, Leon stood next to Emrys, his sword out and his eyes wide. He didn’t look hurt at all, which Arthur counted as a small victory, though he started to tilt a couple seconds after arriving. Gwaine caught him and pulled him back upright.

“Are you alright there, Leon?” Arthur asked.

“Yes, sire. But…” Leon looked behind him and then back to Arthur. “I could’ve sworn that…”

“You’re not dreaming,” possibly-Morgana snapped.

“No, I— I know that. But the sorceror, he— I could’ve sworn.” Leon frowned, then shook himself and sheathed his sword. “Nevermind. It has no bearing on what we’re doing, as I understand it.”

Gwaine broke himself from a reverie and gestured for Leon to follow him. “Come on, I’ll fill you in while the princess waits for Elyan and Lance. Besides, they might appear where you did, and we wouldn’t want them to appear insi—”

At Morgana’s grimace and Percival’s muttered, “Gwaine, _ew,”_ Arthur cut him off. “That’s enough body horror for now, thanks. Get a move on.” He looked down at the sorceror. “Is that blood?”

**~ M ~**

The traveler followed Elyan’s silver thread next and arrived at Elyan’s soul within an instant. Elyan twitched and looked straight at the traveler, still guarding himself with his sword and shield. _“I know you’re there,”_ he called, his voice warbling like Leon’s had. _“I won’t hurt you. What are you?”_

“I’m just me, Sir Elyan. You’ve seen me, I’m—”

_“I see a lot of you. You might need to be more specific.”_

“I’m the sorceror, Elyan,” the traveler said, but he still turned Elyan’s words over in his head. Elyan saw a lot of what? What did he think the traveler was? “I’ve been asked to bring you to the town square. Arthur needs your help, and I’m getting you to him. So if you could let me, I’ll be bringing you to Arthur now.”

Elyan looked more surprised that he was talking to Arthur than the fact he was the sorceror that the knights had been dealing with for a few weeks now. _“Arthur can see you? I didn’t think he’d be able to.”_

“Why wouldn’t he?” asked the traveler rhetorically. “I’m as real as you or he. Now come on, we don’t have unlimited time to lollygag. Let’s get going!”

 _“Ah, I see,”_ Elyan said, composing himself. _“What do I need to do?”_

“Just let me take you with me, and it’ll work out.”

**~ A ~**

Not a minute had passed before a new flash of light burst next to Emrys, leaving Elyan in its wake. Elyan pressed a hand to his forehead and he steadied himself against the wall. Arthur gave him a cursory look-over, but nothing seemed to be wrong with him other than he seemed a little nauseous. “Where’s my sister?”

Arthur shrugged. “She’s around. Ana saw her last.” He pointed to Emrys’ friend.

“Gwen’s helping Zhane organize a group to look for the kids inside the castle, last time I was with her. They should be near the flower thing.” Morgana gestured to it. “But you might want to stick around. Arthur’s planning something.”

Elyan nodded. “I heard something about this.”

“From who?” Arthur asked, catching Percival’s distinctly unnerved expression.

“The sorceror. I thought he was a spirit for a while there, but he didn’t seem to know what I was talking about when I implied so, so I guess…” Elyan shook himself again. “It doesn’t matter. He’s oddly loyal to you. Summoning me has to be exhausting.”

Morgana’s mouth pressed into a tense, thin line. “He’s summoning three people and maintaining a shield and two other spells besides. He’ll be protected better when you all go in, but he’s going to…” She stopped and hid her face with her hair as she checked Emrys’ pulse for the third time that minute. “He might… give out, and if he does, Arthur Pendragon, I want you to promise me something.”

Arthur nodded. “Sure, anything.”

“Let me have his body and don’t stop me from leaving.”

Arthur, about to agree, was interrupted by Elyan. “Why would Arthur object to you taking the sorceror’s body? Why would we stop you from leaving?”

Morgana shifted, cradling Emrys’ head in her lap. She looked hesitant to explain and glared at Arthur. “I don’t see why I should explain myself to you. You’re the reason he can’t do everything he needs to do.” She interrupted herself with a bitter sound of disapproval and continued acidically, “Everything _you_ need him to do. If it weren’t for you, he could walk away from all of this intact.”

“I didn’t make him do this!”

“No,” Morgana conceded, “but you asked him to. To this man, the stupid man, it’s the same fucking thing. He might die bringing your knights to you, and you’ll never know all this man did for your poisoned kingdom.” Emrys mumbled something and Morgana stroked his hair, murmuring to him soothingly. He stilled and for a moment Morgana was thrown into a blind panic. Arthur could only stand next to Elyan and Percival and stare at her, while he puzzled over who Emrys could be, if ‘Emrys’ was only a title. What sorceror was so loyal to Camelot that he thought a request from her monarch equated to an order?

“Is he okay?” asked Elyan worriedly.

Morgana relaxed. “He’s still breathing. I think he just calmed down.”

“That’s good, right?” Arthur asked.

“Yeah,” Morgana said. “Yes, it’s a very good thing. Especially for you, because if he dies and I count you responsible, I have no reservations about taking your life.”

Arthur gulped, knowing she was absolutely serious, and nodded. 

**~ M ~**

The traveler found his way along the last thread, which was a cool, royal purple, to Lancelot, who was herding peasants to a safe haven in the basement of an inn. A few of his guards swarmed around side streets, hunting down mercenaries and picking up stray peasants as they did. The storm of the magical field still tossed the traveler about and it was only made worse by the fact Lancelot would not stop moving around, which tugged the thread every which way. Still, the light of Lancelot’s string shone reassuringly through the whipping gray and the traveler wove through the tempest with surety.

“Sir Lancelot!” he called. The clouds cleared a little, allowing the traveler to see Lance stop, the other soldiers still coursing around him. “Lancelot, Arthur told me to come get you. I need you to keep still and this’ll only take a second, if we’re both lucky.”

_“What’d you say?”_

“Sorry, you’ll probably be able to tell in a few seconds. I’m still a little far out. The field around here is a mess. I used to keep it so clean and now look at it,” the traveler continued to grumble to himself as he pulled himself along the line. “All my work for naught, it is. It’s as bad as it is when I showed up. By the goddess.”

Lancelot moved again and stirred up the clouds once more. The traveler lost ground and yelped as the string burned his hands. Burned… 

A guard stormed past, bellowing in a distorted voice, _“Sir! This is no time to dawdle, sir! There are still people out there!”_

_”I know that, Ronalds! There’s something going on. There’s more than enough of you, let me deal with this now.”_

The traveler made his way, slowly, to Lancelot. Something was wrong with his arms and his hands but he couldn’t focus on that now, not when he had work to do. Arthur had asked him to do this, and he was going to it. He’d been through worse before.

“Lancelot, please, if you would just stop moving and let me get to you, this can all be over with.” The same odd sensation shivered up his arms again, but the traveler only gritted his teeth and took hold of the rope ahead of him. “I swear to the goddess, Lance, this is more trouble than you’ve ever put me through before, even when I had to learn a whole new spell and I still didn’t know it properly. Though, ta-da, I seem to be doing that all over again now.”

Lancelot did stop at that, and looked for the first time as if he was really hearing what the traveler was saying, which didn’t bode well. The traveler had been rather counting on the fact that they were still too far apart. _“Merlin, is that you?”_

“No!” the traveler called back. “Absolutely not! Use your common sense; how could it be m— Merlin? You just had a funeral.”

Lancelot’s face lit up nevertheless and his heartstring reeled the traveler in without forcing him to exert any more energy. Lance held out his arms for a hug and the traveler expected to pass through him, but instead he stopped at Lance’s solid, royal purple soul and hugged back. _“Merlin, my friend, I thought you’d been killed. We all thought you had. We thought— well, I thought— that the sorceror who’d shown up after you disappeared had killed you after you’d gotten into a fight. You would do that, after all. I’m been so worried, Merlin. You have no idea how worried I’ve been.”_

“Well,” the traveler replied, “that’s not what happened at all except for maybe metaphorically, but I’m really not Merlin.” He pulled out of Lancelot’s embrace but kept a hand on his soul. “Come on now, we have to get back to Arthur. I’m not sure how long I can stay here without risking the corporeality of my body.”

Lancelot looked at him strangely, his head cocked to the side, and shrugged. _“Whatever you say.”_

The traveler grinned nervously and let his spirit overwhelm the two of them, protecting them from the whipping winds of the magical field. He let Arthur’s soul, golden and resplendent, and Morgana’s, green and defiant, guide him back to the town square, where they’d all assume new places in the fellowship they’d forged so long ago at a dusty, round table in a cave. All of them, now with Morgana and sans a manservant, would be able to save Camelot, if no one else could.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After a very long hiatus, I have returned! I am not dead, nor have I abandoned this, and I completely intend to see it to the end. I ran into the issue that what I thought was going to be one chapter is turning into many, and so there will be one or two more parts of "Face Off" which are all sort of the same this but split up because otherwise it was going to be 20k+ and I wasn't going to do that.
> 
> Thank you all so much for sticking with me and waiting for this, and thank you so much for reading! I'm really proud of how far I've gotten with this and how I've grown as a writer while writing it, and it means a lot to have people enjoying my work. I love to hear from y'all on this and I know you've been waiting for so long, so here it is, and I hope you enjoyed it! I hope not to have such a gap between the next one and it'll be in the vein of narration as this is, I hope it's not too bad.
> 
> Apparently, now that I know how to do italics, I overuse them. Like, I can't stop to save my life. Italics are batteries I guess. Or pocky. I really like pocky. Sorry about the frequency of that.
> 
> As for the loose ends in this chapter, all will be addressed, I swear. Gaius and his suspicions have not been forgotten. Lancelot's revelation will appear again. Elysande is still leaning out of a window, yelling and making urgent gestures at these dysfunctional dudes. Martha is taken care of. All is good in the world. Except for Dennis, the complicated issue of identity, and the fact that a few people are unaccounted for.
> 
> My beta is WolvaraAsh, an amazing artist, writer, and friend. She puts her work on nearly every social media I can think of, from Facebook to WattPad to Tumblr. Check her out! She doesn't get nearly the recognition she deserves.


	25. Face Off pt. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we Regret

**~ A ~**

Arthur plodded through the halls of his castle, sword in his hand and his knights behind him. Emrys had also tagged along, though he was avoiding most of the knights. He only occasionally spoke to Percival or Gwaine, and when he did, it was in short, curt words. To the other knights, he shied away from any conversation at all. Arthur didn’t know why he was doing it, but it was already getting in the way of working; Lancelot had tried to ask him a few things about what he knew about the army, if anything, and Emrys had just ducked his head and shrugged, moving indiscreetly closer to Arthur.

“Emrys, you rather remind me of a friend of mine,” Leon began. Emrys’ eyes flickered to Leon’s face and then he scooted to the other side of the hallway. Arthur stopped with a stomp. Gwaine ran into him, with a muffled, “what gives?”

Arthur spun on his heel to glare at everyone behind him.

“I have had it with the lot of you,” he snarled. “Emrys, _what_ has gotten into you? We’ve got work to do, and whatever you’ve got against my knights will have to wait until we’ve finished with the mercenary business. So _grow the hell up_ and work with us!”

Lancelot crept closer to Emrys and tried to mutter something to him, but Emrys jumped and moved away. Lancelot slumped a bit and slunk back to the wall.

Arthur glared at the two of them, trying not to play favorites. “What is it with the two of you? Lance, what are you doing?”

“Sir, he’s…” Lancelot glanced to Emrys, looking a little nervous.

 _“He’s_ chosen not to say that,” Emrys snapped.

Lancelot gritted his teeth. “Gaius tried to tell you something, back in the square. I heard some of it, Arthur. We were in a hurry, but if… _Emrys_ has decided not to say it, you’ll have to hear it from somewhere else. So if we could just pause for a second, this might be of considerable interest to you.”

“How about, instead of that, we focus on getting all the invaders out of Camelot?” countered Emrys.

The other knights stared, bewildered at the exchange. Only Gwaine looked like anything made any sense to him: he was staring fixedly at Emrys, his jaw clenched. Emrys avoided his eye and instead gazed at Arthur, unblinking.

Arthur pursed his lips and glanced at Lancelot. “It can wait until we finish up with this. Let’s keep going.”

As the entourage continued down the corridor, Arthur thought about what Gaius had said to him as they were leaving for the castle. It had been stilted and disjointed, and Gaius almost hadn’t sounded like he believed himself, but it was something new, something that Arthur hadn’t thought of, according to Gaius. Something that he _needed_ to know. Arthur knew it was about the sorceror—Emrys—and his identity and Gaius had made it out to sound like Arthur knew who was behind Emrys’ face already, but how that was possible, Arthur couldn’t tell.

He was jolted out of his thoughts by a tap at his elbow. Emrys then. His knights would just call his name. 

“Arthur, I have something to say.”

“Oh?” Arthur coaxed, gently pressing a hand to the sorceror's chest as Arthur peered around a corner. Maybe he’d tell Arthur whatever he wouldn’t let Lancelot say and save them all the trouble.

“It’s about the Duke of Dore.”

Arthur held back a sigh. “Can it wait?”

“No, Arthur, not really—”

The bellow of a bear cut Emrys off. It was quickly followed by a high-pitched scream and another roar.

“That’s a kid,” Percival said, his eyebrows creased.

“Yeah, and a bear. What, you think there’s actually a bear in here? It’s a trick. Let’s keep going,” Emrys retorted. His hand that wasn’t gripping his cane was shaking.

“We could’ve heard it wrong,” Leon conceded, “but that was still someone’s scream. We have to help them. It’s part of the Knight’s Code.”

“Even if it wasn’t,” Elyan added, “we should still help them. If someone’s in trouble and we can help, we ought to. We’ve got a moral obligation to. I can’t believe you wouldn’t! Aren’t you still human?”

**~ M ~**

Was he still human? After weaving spells into his very flesh and an upbringing with a barrier between him and everyone he came across, was he? If, as the druids claimed, he couldn’t die and was instead an avatar of the world’s magic, how human was he? He’d felt distant from the name his mother gave him. Now, his humanity was in question. How long would it be before he lost that too?

The traveler rubbed at his side. He’d pulled a muscle or he had a stitch in his side or _something,_ because it was sore as all hell. Nothing he couldn’t live with, though. Just another injury.

“Well?” prodded Elyan, dragging the traveler back to the present. “You are human, right?”

“Sure,” he agreed. “Yeah.”

“Then we have to help whoever is in danger, don’t we?”

The traveler screwed up his face, trying to pinpoint exactly what was going on. He’d lost his train of thought, it seemed. Who was it that was in danger, again? What had prompted the question of his humanity?

“My friend, there’s someone we have to help,” Lancelot, murmured. “Are you okay?”

The bear roared again, and the traveler’s eyes widened in shock. Right, the bear. And the scream. And the—

Something flashed through the traveler’s brain. It was glaring and red and dirty. It soured his stomach and dragged his heart into his throat. What was that feeling in his arm? It stung and it was someone’s fault, he knew, but _whose_ fault? Some part of his mind whispered to him that it was an affront to the Goddess, and he knew that to be true. It sent a repulsive shudder down his spine, leaving vile images of violation and injury in its wake. Something was _wrong_ with whatever was down that corridor; it was unnatural and it _hurt._

There was a hand on his arm, and there was a wound there too, except that there wasn’t. Lancelot was muttering things to him and there was another voice in his head that he couldn’t hear precisely, telling him to do things. He could see this corridor and another one, one red and the other filled with people.

Another hand clapped his shoulder and squeezed. With a gasp, he knew he was back. He had all his fingers and all his toes. Arthur pulled away, taking his hand with him. Lancelot still hung on, holding the traveler up. The traveler leaned into his grip.

“What was that?” Gwaine demanded. “That wasn’t one of your fits, was it. You act differently with your attacks, like you’re in pain. That just looked like you were passing out.”

“Don’t go down that hall,” rasped the traveler, instead of answering. He balked at his voice; he hadn’t thought it sounded _that_ bad.

“Just because you don’t think there’s actually a bear?” Leon asked incredulously. “Not likely. We still heard a scream, and we need to help.”

Arthur nodded to Leon and looked back at the traveler. The traveler knew that this could be it for either one of them. That hall was dangerous. It was _bad._ If it was the end, well, at least Arthur’s hair was soft and he was pretty.

“You could stay here,” Arthur offered. “Do you think you’ll be alright on your own?”

“Sure,” the traveler agreed. “But I’m not going to stay here. I need to get to the throne room.”

The knights exchanged looks.

“Are you sure you can, you know, make it to the throne room?” asked Lancelot. “No offense intended, but you look a little…” He winced. “I would say woozy.”

Before the traveler could answer, Arthur jumped in with, “Why do you need to go to the throne room, anyway?”

Before the traveler could answer that either, the bear bellowed for the fourth time and a scream followed it, and the knights were off like a shot, leaving the traveler standing in the hallway with only a cane and pronounced irritation.

**~ A ~**

The knights pounded to a stop in a dead-end corridor. There didn’t seem to be a bear anywhere in sight, but there was a small lump on the ground, still shaking. Arthur looked to Leon, who nodded, unbuckled his cape, and lay it out on the ground in case they need to carry the child. Arthur rolled them over and jumped back into his knights’ legs.

“Seta,” he gasped.

It was Seta alright, quaking with his eyes squeezed shut and his head tucked to his breastbone. Arthur shook the boy again, hoping Seta would come out of whatever fear-induced trance he was locked in. “Seta,” he tried again. “Seta, it’s me. It’s Arthur. Can you get up? We should get you somewhere safe.”

“Get back!” Seta screeched, flapping his hands and curling into himself more. Arthur stood slowly, hoping not to spook him, and gestured to his knights to follow him back. Once they were a few feet away from Seta, Gwaine made a distinct noise of disgust.

“Is this _blood?_ All over the floor? What the hell is this?”

Arthur glanced around the corridor, looking for anything out of place. Seta’s hands were bloody, but they couldn’t have lost so much blood to paint the floor of the corridor such a putrid red. This had to be the blood of an animal, or at least most of the blood of an adult. If Seta was still breathing, which Arthur knew he was, then it couldn’t be his blood. It was a small comfort, all things considered, but at least Seta was as okay as he could be, shaking as he was in a corner.

But he wasn’t shaking anymore, was he?

No, Seta was still crouched, but he was steady. His right hand wasn’t supporting him; it was raised in the air as if he was waiting to be called on in class.

“Seta, are you alright?” Arthur asked him, though he didn’t get any closer. If Seta reacted as badly as he had when Arthur was trying to check up on him, it could be disastrous. Also, it would probably be better that Seta didn’t know he was surrounded by some bloody art piece if he didn’t already.

Instead of answering, though, Seta slammed his hand into the ground.

The red lines flared with light, illuminating the corridor. For a split second, Arthur could see how it was all laid out: how he and the other knights were in the center of five concentric circles, how Seta’s hand was inside a circle linked to the rest of glyph by chains of runes, how one rune was repeated over and over and over—a rune Arthur’d seen in his travels, which he always knew to turn away from. The rune for blood.

Then Arthur was blinded and he fell to his knees and then his stomach. He couldn’t move, Goddess help him, only lie on the ground, surrounded by blood. Two shoes, shoes he’d _bought,_ came to rest in front of Arthur’s eyes.

“Too easy to fool you, King. I’d expected more, what with your reputation.” Seta picked Arthur up with inhuman strength, only high enough for Arthur to meet his son’s eyes, with one hand. But Seta’s eyes weren’t _normal,_ not even for sorcerors. Instead of a discolored iris, his whole eyes were a swirling mess of black and red, like blood mixing with dirty oil. “Pity. I would’ve had so much more fun if you’d held up longer.”

Arthur wanted to ask so many things—when had this plan taken shape? _Why_ had it taken shape? What had he done to Seta? Had it all been a ploy to get here, when Camelot was falling and Arthur was half out of his mind with worry? And above all, _why?_ Why was Seta doing any of this? Why would he turn on Arthur? Why had he turned to malicious glyphs and traps and harm?—but his throat was being crushed, and he couldn’t get anything out. Seta tilted Arthur’s head this way and that, examining him, before snorting and tossing him back onto the blood sigil.

“Good night, sweet prince.” Seta snapped and he vanished in a red tornado, leaving behind only one last line: “May flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.”

The glyph crackled once more with red electricity, like a twisted cousin of the magic Emrys used not an hour before, and Arthur knew nothing except the agonized screams of his knights and an unending darkness.

**~ M ~**

The traveler stared after the knights for a few seconds, their crimson capes quickly becoming all he could see of them in the gloom of the corridor. Maybe _that_ was why he’d seen the corridor as red: a sudden density of red-garbed knights. Out of every possibility, that was the least alarming, and probably the least likely. But the traveler’s optimism hadn’t kept him alive. Best to think the worst and over-insure than to think the best and be caught unprepared.

So, by that logic, it would be best to believe Arthur already dead. In that case, the traveler was the last line of defense for Camelot. He’d have to do everything himself. As per usual, then. At least it would be a familiar routine.

His mind made up, the traveler stomped down the larger hallway, rubbing his thumb over the grain of his cane’s wood. After almost a month of his staff being in this draconic form, it felt like a life-long companion. He knew the ridges and nicks of it like he knew the feel of his own hands, like he knew Morgana’s face and Arthur’s habits. It would stay with him even when Arthur didn’t believe him and Lancelot had found him out and Gwaine was well past suspicious. The wood was magic contained—it would live on even when he survived his friends by centuries, trapped by the myriad of prophecies that loaded duty upon duty on his shoulders.

The hallways were absolutely deserted. It was unnerving, to say the least, that the halls the traveler had always known as lively and crowded were so devoid of life. Now, even the walls seemed to be cold.

The traveler rubbed again at his side. What a time to get a cramp! A battle for the very life of Camelot as he knew it at every turn, and he had a stitch in his side. Fantastic. Even when he wasn’t at the mercy of the Blade of Cahrathis, his own body turned on him. Typical.

Frowning, the traveler picked up his pace. He didn’t trust himself to try teleporting—he hadn’t had the best luck recently and with his track record, he could very well teleport right into a trap.

“Hey!” Jerking, the traveler swiveled to see the same woman who’d been hanging out of the window and waving her arms earlier; Dame Tane, if he recalled correctly. Blood dripped from her breastplate and warhammer. “You’re the sorceror Martha was tracking if I’m not wrong. The king thinks highly of you—well, ‘highly’ within reason, I suppose. But that’s good enough for me, right now. Did he send you? I’ve been waiting for him to meet up with me, strategize and all that jazz, but—mm. It’s been awhile.”

The traveler stared back at her tiredly. “Can you say that again, but slower and with fewer side notes?”

“Did Arthur, the king, send you?” Dame Tane repeated.

“As of right now, I’m operating under the assumption that Arthur is dead.”

“What?!” Dame Tane took a step forward and the traveler shrunk back to the wall. She was blood and might and a hooded candle, which could flare up and burn down a room at any second. The traveler got the sense she lived standing at the edge of a cliff, waiting for an excuse to jump off.

“It makes my job easier if I don’t count on him,” he told her quietly. “I know who’s in charge of this, or at least I think I do, and I know what I have to do to stop him. Arthur might be alive, he might not. But I’m not going to sit on my hands and wait to find out; that’s inviting a death sentence to everyone living in Camelot. And I won’t do that.”

Dame Tane looked him up and down, taking in his cane and his haggard disposition. His eyes, the traveler knew, were carrying impressive shadows and were closed more often than not, but he wasn’t _dead._ He wasn’t in the ground yet, and he was still walking just fine. He could talk and think and cast spells. What did it matter that for all his preparation and sleep over the past few days, he was still exhausted? If he’d been tired for a good 9 months straight, which he had, what was a few more days?

“What exactly do you think you can do?” she asked, trying to make it kind but just sounding incredulous.

“Kill the bastard,” the traveler replied. “Maybe restore my friend’s magic. I don’t know. I could do a lot.”

“And you’re sure that you’re… healthy enough to do this? To do anything at all?” Dame Tane crossed her arms, an eyebrow raised. “Take this exactly as I say it because you don’t look like you should even be walking. You look like you’ve got a foot in the grave already.”

“More than a foot, I should think.”

“You’re not doing a great job convincing me of your health.”

The traveler shrugged, a small smile on his face. “Maybe not. Maybe I just don’t give a crap, since I’m going to do whatever I want anyway.”

Dame Tame sighed, leaned back, and pinched the bridge of her nose as if she was dealing with a petulant child instead of a petulant sorceror with a death wish. The traveler smiled at the thought that Dame Tane had enough experience with children to perfect such a look. Did she? She seemed like the sort of person who pretended to detest children, a facade with no basis in reality.

“Listen,” she said, _“if_ the king really is dead and _if_ you’re the only person in the city who can solve our problem, then I can’t just let you walk around with no security or protection. You look like you’re going to fall over, for heaven’s sake. You can’t just fucking—if you die, and you’re right about the rest of it, then everything we know as Camelot collapses, and I won’t take that risk. I’m in charge of security. And I won’t abandon my post.”

“Sure thing,” the traveler replied, smiling. “Here’s a better thought, though. Go outside, into the shield—don’t worry about it, I’ll let you in, I guess, since I did it before—and take Ana and Gwen with you to kick some mercenary ass. I’ll call Ana right now, in fact, and tell her you’re coming.”

“No—”

The traveler excavated the enchanted mirror from his bag and tapped it twice. It was still for a second before the sound of clanging swords exploded into the air. The traveler winced.

“Hey!” Morgana’s voice was almost lost amid everything else. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing, calling me now?”

“I didn’t think you’d be out of the bubble!” He caught only the most fleeting glance of her green eyes and then a crackle of purple electricity took over the surface of the mirror. The traveler yanked his fingers away from the mirror and bobbled it between his hands as the lightning faded. Once it was safely back in his grip, he pointed it at Dame Tane. “This is Dame Tane.”

Briefly, Morgana’s face came into view again. “Goddess, she’s hot!”

“And she can hear you,” the traveler said, bemused.

“And she’s married,” Dame Tane added, a smile on her face.

“I am _so_ sorry—oh fuck—” Morgana cut off as steel swung towards her. The traveler recognized the following _thump_ of a foot connecting with a torso and grinned. “I wasn’t—I mean, I sort of was hitting on you, but not intentionally—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dame Tane dismissed. “It’ll just be a funny story to tell my wife.”

Turning the mirror back to his own face, the traveler said, “She’ll be joining you soon. Where are you, by the way, and why did you leave the shield?”

“Oh, we’re not far from the courtyard. We’re just trying to take out as many—oof—of the mercenaries as we can.” The view of the mirror turned to Gwen, who was cutting people down with her enchanted sword, her face steely. For a split second, she gave a wave to Morgana before diving back into the fray. “Zhane and her crowd went into the castle and Gwen and I took about twenty people out into the lower town, so we’re having fun! These swords are coming in handy, too, so thanks.”

The traveler, fumbling to hold the mirror and stretch a few of his fingers at the same time, touched Dame Tane’s hand and fished through the magic field for a fix on Morgana’s verdant soul, grumbling at the challenge that the polluted mindscape presented. Where was that _one thread_ when he wanted it?

“Um,” Dame Tane began.

“Hush,” the traveler snapped. “This is hard enough.”

He took another breath, curled his hand around the eye of his cane, and plunged back into the magic field. He tried to think of Morgana and the week they’d spent in a shack together, recovering. He walked back through when she’d held a knife to his throat because she’d uncovered _everything_ and then to when he’d found her, empty and despondent, in a chair. He thought again of what she’d been like while still living in Camelot: outspoken but clever, sharp-tongued but kind, principled but disdainful of the law. He thought of the tea she made him when he woke up and the way she called him ‘my friend’ and how she cradled him as he’d exposed his desire to die and his fear of the man who’d been his best friend. He thought of holding her hand through the dungeon bars, waking up to her at his side, her exasperated care for him.

One thread, greener than the grass in spring, glared through the fog.

The traveler smiled.

In a second, Dame Tane was gone, and Morgana yelped through the mirror.

“My friend, if you do much more magic, you’re going to keel over!” She glared at him for only a moment before turning back to the fight. The traveler could only smile back at her.

There was a glare of purple light in the mirror and not a moment later, the mirror crackled with the same lightning. With his already precarious hold on the glass, the traveler screeched and dropped it, his eyes squeezed shut and his hand hugged tightly to his chest.

The mirror shattered and the traveler felt a tug on his magic which brought him to his knees. His left hand landed in the glass and he barely felt a thing, though he could see the blood when he picked it up. Damn it all.

His link to Morgana gone, the traveler gave himself only a moment to rest before cleaning himself up and hustling on. He had to get to Dennis before anyone else got hurt. If he failed to even protect one city, what hope as a protector of all magic did he have?

The door to the throne room was locked—predictably—as well as warded against attack—just as predictably—and the traveler only snorted, irritated. He slammed his cane into the ground, snarled a word, and blew the doors apart. One slowly fell forward before picking up speed and slamming into the ground, but the other dangled off one of its hinges, barely holding on. The traveler’s felt _something_ in his stomach—disgust? Satisfaction? Pride?—and stormed on in.

“Emrys,” greeted Dennis, sitting languidly on Arthur’s throne, one leg over the other. “So nice of you to join me.”

The traveler’s eyes flicked to the box in the middle of the room, covered in gold lines and switches and looking so very much like Seta’s noisemaker. With the two manacles chained to it and an eerie glow, the traveler had no doubt that this… this contraption was exactly what had stolen Morgana’s magic from her.

“So nice to be finally recognized,” the traveler returned.

Dennis sat up a little straighter. “Ah, you’re referring to when we met in the hall. Yes, I didn’t see it then. But after you cast a shield as bright as the sun and created your own storm to defeat my mercenaries, it was a little more difficult to miss.”

“I’m not hiding any longer, I hope you know that.”

“Of course! Why would you—aren’t you leaving soon?”

The traveler narrowed his eyes and stepped closer to the side of the throne room, carefully avoiding the box in the center. “How do you know that?”

Dennis unfolded his legs and stood, beckoning to… someone. “Gossip is a wicked thing, Emrys. As are spies.”

Out from behind the throne stepped Seta, his eyes swirling with the colors of a battlefield, gory and terminal. The traveler stumbled. That was what had been down that corridor; not the cloaks of Camelot knights but blood magic and this _abomination._

**~ A ~**

Arthur woke up with blood sticking to his face and armor, already half-dry. He spat, disgusted, and tried to stand up, only to fall back down to his elbows. He was weak and tired, not to mention confused and angry, but he had to get up. He had to find Seta and get his answers and solve whatever new problem this was. And to do _that,_ he had to stand up.

Slowly, he pulled his knees under him, just far enough so he could sit back on them. He looked around the corridor at his knights, most of whom were still unconscious. None of them moved except for Gwaine, who was caught at the edge of the blood sigil and twitched every few seconds.

Why was _he,_ then, awake?

Was Emrys okay? He’d seemed to stay out in the hall, and by now Arthur had to concede that his feeling about the corridor had been correct, but had Seta caught him there, too?

‘Don’t worry about Emrys,’ Merlin’s voice advised. ‘Just focus on getting up, right now. Focus on being alright. Camelot needs you.’

Nodding absently, Arthur crawled to the wall. He stopped at the circle still marked with Seta’s bloody handprint, wondering. What had driven Seta to do this? What did he gain from attacking Arthur and his knights? What reason could he possibly have for even _thinking_ about doing this, let alone following through?

Since when had Seta had magic?

Arthur shook himself. That wasn’t the important thing. Percival had hidden the fact he was half druid for the better part of four years; why would Seta come out and tell all after just nine months?

But if he’d taken the time to make the sigil, why hadn’t he taken the time to make one of his contraptions instead? That was more like him, Arthur thought, than making something as messy as a sigil. Seta _loved_ the precision and the puzzle of making his mechanical things. Why would he pass it up for something that could take more time, do less, and ultimately require him to be present when he wanted to activate it?

Arthur smeared the circle and Seta’s handprint with his elbow. From what he knew of sigils, they were a one-time deal, but better safe than sorry.

‘Arthur, don’t you think you should wait for your other knights to wake up?’ Merlin’s ghost nagged. ‘At least wait for Gwaine. He’s at the edge, you said it yourself. He could get up soon. Won’t it be better if you have a couple of people with you?’

“I don’t have time,” Arthur replied tersely, straining. “I need to finish this.”

‘Yeah, because you’re in _perfect_ shape to do that right now.’

“Shut _up,_ Merlin. I don’t know who I can count on and I don’t know who’s okay, so I’m doing this on my own.” He made it to the wall and braced himself against it. He felt a lot better now that he wasn’t on the sigil at all, but tiny jolts of red lightning still raced along his skin. “This is a disaster. What on earth am I supposed to do when I have a castle overrun, no conscious knights, and a shadow of my best friend?”

‘Arthur—’

“I _know_ you’re not real and I _know_ Merlin’s dead, but I need him now more than ever!” Arthur’s face felt hot and his vision swam. “I miss him. And you’re _not him_ and you couldn’t be if you tried since you’re just whatever I remember of him.”

‘Then just pretend, I guess. If we both know it… Well, I’ll just do my best, Arthur. Stay alive.’

Limping, Arthur made it to the mouth of the corridor and looked up and down it for Emrys. He didn’t see him, which could be a great thing or an awful thing, and he wasn’t sure yet. Damn it. If he’d listened to the sorceror and avoided the corridor… Would he have just found out about Seta later? For that matter, how had Seta made that bear sound?

“Merlin, do you remember where Emrys said he was going?”

**~ M ~**

The traveler kept his face under stern control. “You sent him here?”

Dennis finally got up off the throne. His face was curled in a cruel smile. He patted Seta’s shoulder. “Oh, goodness no. No, his mother sent… him here. I didn’t even know he was here until I came across him in the halls. Barely recognized him then, even. But he recognized me, I know that. And it’s oh-so-handy to have a blood relation around.”

The traveler stepped back, surprised. He’d pegged Dennis as a handler, not a father. Or an uncle, the traveler supposed. But Dennis had not seen Seta for a while if he didn’t even know he was in Camelot, not to mention he wasn’t able to recognize him. How long had Dennis been out of Seta’s life to be so uninformed on his relative? It was clear enough that Dennis didn’t care for Seta at all, but if he was going to reach out to him for a diabolical scheme to overthrow Camelot, you would’ve thought he’d at least send birthday cards.

“His only use to you is as a blood relative?”

Dennis shrugged. “Oh, he has other uses. As a lure, for one, and as a scientist for another. He and the king are close and it was all too easy to snare him and his knights. A pity, really. I expected more from him, what with his reputation.” He shrugged again, turning his toothy grin on Seta. “Never meet your heroes, eh?”

Seta didn’t move. He just stared straight ahead, immobile under Dennis’ gaze.

The traveler didn’t move either. Perhaps it was better to follow Seta’s lead. But something was happening, and whatever was going on with Seta was probably a clue. Dennis, however, cocked his head.

“Interesting, I thought you’d be more affected.”

“By what?” the traveler replied evenly.

“By my overt implication that I killed the king of Camelot. You were at his side at all times.” He moved theatrically, making grand gestures as he continued. “Or you _were._ What happened? I often wonder about that myself. There have been no magical happenings in this stupid city for the last few months. So you must not have been here, or someone would have noticed. Funny thing, that. I never thought you might be a traitor to the crown.” Dennis leered off the dais. “Now, to _magic,_ that is a different matter. You’ve done nothing that would serve our kin! Instead, you pledged yourself to the Pendragon king, a murderer if I ever saw one. Where you could’ve killed him and taken his throne, you _bowed_ to him instead!”

“Shut up already!”

Dennis startled and jerked back.

“I _have_ done things for my kin. You, however, are not counted among that number. You’re cruel and short-sighted.” The traveler stepped closer to the throne, just enough so the box was hidden behind him. “You’re here, trying to conquer Camelot. Camelot has allies, though, and you’d fall easily. It’s better to persuade and lobby.”

“You won’t take the plunge, will you?” snarled Dennis, his grip tightening on Seta’s shoulder. “You won’t do anything more than the coward’s minimum.”

“To the contrary,” said the traveler cheerfully, “I do a great deal more than I need to.” He flicked his index finger and sent the box sliding to the wall.

His face twisted, Dennis released Seta, who barely moved, and screeched some Old Religion word and he thrust his hand out. A ball of fire shot towards him.

The traveler waved his hand and extinguished it.

“You didn’t _really_ think that would work, did you?” he asked.

Instead of replying, Dennis loosed a bolt of energy at the traveler’s head. With a tap of the traveler’s staff, a temporary shield surrounded him. The bolt dissipated harmlessly.

“You’re cowardly—” Dennis shot another bolt. The traveler barely dodged. “—and stupid—” A third, which grazed the traveler’s scarred shoulder. “—and traitorous—” The fourth bolt hit the traveler’s toe. “—and _nothing!”_

Dennis stomped on the floor, sending a wave of the floor which knocked the traveler off his feet.

As the undulating floor finally stilled, the traveler pulled himself to all fours. His cramp was still there, still throbbing quietly, and his shoulder and toe felt like they were on fire, but he was okay. Probably. At the very least, he was okay with his new, extraordinarily low standards of what constituted ‘okay.’

“You’re a pain in my ass,” he told Dennis. He clicked his fingers and a tiny flame bobbed to life in his right hand. “You dared to endanger my home and my people, yet you’re stupid enough to confront me. I’ve killed before, _Dennis.”_ Dennis took a step back, eyes wide, at his name. “And I’ll kill again. If no one else, I’ll kill you.” The flame shifted color as if burned hotter and hotter in his palm, from red to purple to blue. “It is my job and obligation to guard Camelot. You’ll not stand in the way of that.”

He flattened his hand and blew gently, sending the flame whooshing down the throne room to Dennis’ chest. It set his shirt on fire and barreled right into his skin. Dennis howled with pain. With a sweep of his cane, the traveler summoned a circle of blazing energy, which spun and whipped around Dennis and the dais.

“This would be ruined if you didn’t know what it was, Dennis,” said the traveler, trying to beat Dennis at his own game. “But I have faith in you. Unfounded, perhaps, but I have faith. Can you tell me what it is?”

Dennis only kept screaming.

“How disappointing.” Slowly, the traveler closed his hand into a fist and the circle closed too, tightening its noose around Dennis’ not-so-metaphorical neck. The pitiful man gasped for air, clawing at his throat, but he only burned his hands as he did.

The traveler crawled to his feet with liberal use of his cane. “That was shorter than I could’ve ever hoped. Thanks, I suppose, for your ineptitude.”

As he turned to the door, the screaming stopped. A moment later, he had a feeling of being punched in the back. With a grunt, the traveler stumbled forward. He couldn’t move his cane quick enough and since his legs were tired at the best of times, he couldn’t stabilize himself. So he fell on his face instead. His cane clattered away. Still prone, he flipped his head so he could _just_ see the rest of the room out of his periphery.

Dennis stood behind him, a blood on his hand and burns around his neck.

“You didn’t _really_ think that would work, did you?” he sneered, throwing the traveler’s own words back at him.

“I don’t know,” the traveler responded honestly. He propped himself up on his elbows. “Sometimes it really _is_ that easy. Mind telling me how you managed to avoid dying?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” Dennis launched into a spiel about this, that, and the other, which the traveler tuned out.

He looked about the throne room. He didn’t really have anything that could help him stand up, given where he was. Even though it was days after he’d had a leg-related attack, they still weren’t up to par and there was no way he was standing up using his arms alone.

“…Little did I know that you were gone!” Dennis laughed to himself. “I brought down a duchy to have an excuse to get in here, and you’d done me the discourtesy of leaving the kingdom! Would it have _killed_ you to stay in one place?”

“Probably,” the traveler grunted.

Dennis stopped abruptly. “What— _really?_ I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m waiting around to kill you, but you would have died before I got the chance?”

Rolling onto his back, the traveler hummed an affirmative. “Got myself sentenced to death.”

Silence reigned in place of Arthur as the traveler closed his eyes, tempted to just go to sleep, and Dennis presumably stood a few feet away, jaw on the floor. The traveler wished he’d make up his mind. What an erratic man. If Merlin had any grand-nieces or nephews to tell stories to, he’d save the story of ‘The Man Too Indecisive to Kill Me’ for late winter nights. Not that he could tell the full story, and certainly not to younger children, but give it some work and the tale of ‘Dennis and the Longest It Ever Took to Get to the Good Part’ would get some proper laughs.

At long last, Dennis said, “I don’t know if I should be glad I’m getting the opportunity to kill you myself or wish you’d died earlier.” The traveler picked up his head. Dennis closed his eyes and pinched at the bridge of his nose. “Give me a minute; I have to think this over.”

The traveler made a split second decision (the best kind).

Biting back his reservations, he slapped the floor with his hand. For a second more, he was there.

And then he wasn’t.

**~ A ~**

Merlin’s ghost, of course, did not remember where Emrys had said he was going. Fat lot of good he was. Honestly, if an extra-dimensional being with powers beyond any such human ability couldn’t find an actual _wizard_ who had run off to wherever-the-fuck, Arthur needed to write a strongly-worded letter to the phantom factory.

Arthur sat down just outside the corridor with the glyphs, thinking.

Emrys hadn’t gone back the way they’d come. Why would he? He meant to go somewhere and he had never struck Arthur as the sort of person to give up ground just to walk with someone else. No, he’d expected the knights to follow him to his goal, but he wasn’t willing to give it up. Which at the very least meant Arthur knew what direction Emrys had trundled off in.

‘Hold on, Arthur,’ Merlin said, evidently trying to rein him in. ‘Think about this. What did Emrys say he was doing? Because he’s probably doing something dangerous.’

“Which is exactly why I have to go help him,” Arthur replied, frowning.

‘And I understand that, but why don’t you think of a plan first? You know, to avoid grievous injury on your part.’ A pause. Arthur could picture Merlin’s expression at that moment: looking much like a patronizing pigeon, his head cocked to the side, with a disregard for Arthur’s irritation, much less his pride. God, how he missed it. ‘Of course, you’ve never listened to me before. But _honestly,_ you’re being an idiot about this. This isn’t something you can just rush at. Not much is! But you could at least approach it with a little more caution.’

“There’s too much going on right now. I just need to take action.”

‘For the last time, that’ll get you killed! You need a _plan!’_

“And what would you have me do, then?” Arthur stood back up and started to pace. “Because the knights aren’t going to wake up anytime soon, except for maybe Gwaine, and they definitely won’t be fit to fight. I have to do something and I simply don’t know enough to make a good plan!”

The silence stretched on. Merlin’s ghost seemed to be searching for something to counter with, something to stop Arthur before everything fell apart.

**~ M ~**

The traveler re-appeared next to Seta, who still only stared ahead of him with vacant red and black eyes. They looked like the grime of the battlefield; blood draining into the ground, mixing with the oil and spit and sweat into one cesspool of death and empty victory. There were few things that could’ve trapped Seta like this, and the traveler didn’t know which he preferred. For now, though, it was best to put him to sleep so the traveler wouldn’t have to fight two-on-one.

With a wave of the traveler’s hand, Seta slumped over. The traveler caught him and lay him carefully on the ground.

Dennis noticed, unfortunately.

“You realize he works for me, don’t you?” Dennis clenched his fists. “Don’t bother to be careful with him. He’ll attack you with a single word from me.”

The traveler cocked his head and hid his hands behind his back. “Well, he wasn’t exactly taking much initiative against me. His eyes are…” The traveler glanced down. “His eyes probably speak to some outside factor. I’ll figure it out once I don’t have to deal with you.”

Dennis flicked his wrist, loosing a blast against one of the columns of the throne room. The traveler shrunk away.

“Stand your ground!” Another bolt slammed into a column. “You’re the most powerful sorceror alive. Give me a challenge; come on!”

“Fuck,” the traveler punched the air, _“OFF!”_ A plume of fire roared through the air. He summoned his cane to him and swept it in a semicircle in front of him. Another wave of flame. As it bore down on Dennis, the middle-aged scumbag threw himself to the floor and clapped his hands, dissipating the flame with a shockwave.

Dennis laughed. “That’s more like it!” he crowed, flinging out his hand and sent a whirling gust of wind at the traveler. It careened around the room, spinning away when it got too close to a wall. The traveler looked at it, unimpressed. With a wave of his hand, he turned the wayward wind back on its conjurer. It focused into a roaring gale and threw Dennis against the wall.

The false Duke didn’t move.

The traveler trudged off the dais to the cursed contraption of Dennis’. He wasn’t sure _how_ exactly, but he figured he could probably use it to get Morgana’s magic back. It had been a while since the traveler had engaged in any sort of logic game with Gaius, but that would hold up to his scrutiny. Maybe.

It glowed in clean-cut lines and circles altogether too perfect. The traveler knew these shapes, somehow, but in the same way he knew verses of songs no one knew now but him. Strange, how he knew things both backward and forwards. Strange and unhelpful.

The manacles could only be called cruel. Rough cut and cold, they gave only empty clanks when he moved them. He could feel the deadness—no, no, the _emptiness—_ even without locking them around his wrists. It hurt as if he was being hollowed out like a gourd for the Harvest Lord’s Feast and the rest of his flesh falling out through the hole. His skin crawled as his hairs raised and his stomach turned. It was evil and empty and the end of all that made him. Cold iron, then, just as Morgana had said. Cold and cursed.

Oh well. He only had to weather it long enough to take Morgana’s magic back.

He dragged the disgusting box over to where Dennis lay and gingerly opened the lock on the manacle to put Dennis’ wrist in it. It felt wrong to do that to a person. Even Dennis, who’d caused so much suffering to so many people, didn’t deserve to have the life stolen out from under him. Even Dennis, the cause of this cruel decision, didn’t deserve to be left as he’d left Morgana, without so much as a thought to move him. After years of regretting the harm he’d done others, could the traveler really justify it to himself to hurt another person? Didn’t even Dennis, the damned man, deserve mercy? And if he didn’t, shouldn’t he be left to the pain of never-ending regret and memories? That was a fit punishment. It was the punishment the traveler endured, after all. Someone else should know that agony too. Why not have it be the man who’d ruined the life of his best friend since the egress and hurt, perhaps killed, his best friend from before? Wouldn’t this awful man who hurt children and had no care for others be the best one to inherit all the pain he’d caused?

**~ A ~**

‘I’m just saying, for the umpteenth time, a little forethought would help!’

Arthur crept along the wall, his sword out. His gaze swept from one end of the hallway to the other and only stopped to register shadows fading when the sun hid behind clouds. He was totally alone. Which Merlin’s ghost wouldn’t stop harping on.

‘Could you find Dame Tane? Or her wife? Her wife seems pretty badass. She’s a spy, right?’ Merlin’s ghost didn’t stop long enough for Arthur to answer. ‘She’s got to be a strategist, then. At least, she’s got to have a good head on her shoulders. Better than yours, anyway.’

“I don’t even know where the two of them are!” Arthur hissed back. “In case it escaped you, this is a big castle!”

‘Uh huh, uh huh. Yet you think you know where Emrys went. Sure, I see your logic. This makes complete and total sense and isn’t an excuse at _all.’_

Arthur only rolled his eyes and slid across the hall to look out the window. The golden bubble was still in place, thank the goddess, but there was some fighting outside of it. Someone had probably decided it was best to take matters into their own hands instead of waiting around to be rescued. He sighed. It was nice to see some initiative, but would it kill his citizens to wait just a _little_ bit longer for the knights? Honestly, throwing themselves into danger without any weapons training was tantamount to suicide!

‘Wow, a little like going up against sorcerors on your own with no magical expertise,’ Merlin’s ghost snipped.

“Shut up,” replied Arthur absently.

Upon closer inspection (as close as it could be, anyway, from a third story window), it looked like the peasants _did_ know what they were doing. How unusual. Wait—was that—it _was!_ Dame Tane’s chain and plate armor were noticeable enough, but her towering stature gave her away. And someone else that he _knew,_ though he couldn’t quite place her, spun through the horde with one of the sorceror’s enchanted swords. Her hair spun with her. It looked… brown and curly. Gwen! It had to be. And the woman near her had to be Ana-with-little-doubt-Morgana!

What a relief that people who actually knew what they were doing were the ones out there.

‘Gwen’s really good,’ Merlin’s ghost said, sounding a bit awestruck.

“Come on, Merlin, you knew that already.” Arthur couldn’t look away, though, from the distant forms of the three women cutting down foes like they were nothing. None of them fought in traditional Camelot forms but they were all fighting in some style they must’ve made themselves. Gwen’s sword had to be the heaviest, even though she herself was the smallest, and she looked to be having fun with the weight. “You remember when we fought in Ealdor. She was spectacular then, think of the years she’s had to practice since then.”

‘Why’d you never knight her?’ Merlin asked.

“I don’t know,” Arthur admitted, a little uncomfortable. “I guess it never occurred to me.”

‘Do you think you’ll do it now?’

“If she can come out of this battle fit to do it again, she’s passed our standard test a hundred times over.” Reaching into his pocket, Arthur rubbed Merlin’s scarf. “I know I should’ve.”

‘Do you think she’ll want to be knighted?’

“I hope so. I’ll have to ask her. But she’s certainly capable.” Arthur sighed, thinking of the six months they’d spent trying to date. It had been clumsy and messy, but Gwen really was amazing. The outcome had been his fault and sometimes he wished they’d maintained their relationship. There were more important things now, of course. But memories, soft and fluffy as these were, were nice to have at the event horizon.

Barring his chats with Merlin’s ghost, Arthur couldn’t bear to think of his ex-manservant. Not when this was the day of his funeral. Not when he knew now what he knew; that Arthur loved a dead man who might’ve loved him in return.

Merlin’s ghost, gentle like a hand on his shoulder, murmured, ‘Ready to go now?’

Arthur shook his head. He wiped his eyes, surprised that there were tears. “Yeah.” He coughed, catching himself. “I mean, yes, my friend. I am.”

As he turned back down the hall, he could almost hear Merlin running after him.

**~ M ~**

The traveler was thrown to the side and he only had time to think “I’m in trouble” before he crashed into the steps of the dais. Dazed, he lay there, half his body on the flat, elevated platform, and the other half dangling off the edge. He knew his right hand was on one step or another. He could feel the chips in the stone. It was almost soft in his haze.

A sound, like the hissing of a snake, slithered through the air and grew to a roar.

Lights, like a scattered rainbow, took over the traveler’s vision and held him in place. Pretty. Too pretty, too fake to be safe.

Whispered _‘oh no oh no oh no oh no oh no’_ s rumbled through his head, and he realized it was Seta’s voice. When the poor boy had woken up was a mystery, but the traveler wished he hadn’t. Goddess knew Camelot had less than subpar mental health services, and Seta would probably need therapy for the rest of his life.

“Stay where you are,” the traveler tried to say, but only managed to mouth it.

His movements sluggish, the traveler brought his right arm back to his chest, then let it flop back. With intent, though. The intent mattered. Right now, in fact, it was the difference between life and death. Fire (always fire with this hand, never something clever, sedate, only fire) burst forth in one curved blade that the traveler could only hope hit its mark. Who was it? Dennis was down for the count and Seta was panicking behind the throne. Seta didn’t even have magic, as far as the traveler had discerned. Who could’ve made it to the throne room and done this?

He propped himself up on his elbow. He had to turn away from this new assailant to do it, had to open his back as a target. But he’d fall off otherwise. That would probably be worse.

He couldn't do this. Not that he didn’t want to or that he doubted himself, he _couldn’t._ He was too tired and spent now. He’d been doing magic all day long, with no rest. He still had to maintain his glamour. The summoning had almost killed him. Another fight would undoubtedly finish the job. More than a foot in the grave indeed.

Still. He had to.

“You may be foretold as all-powerful, Emrys,” snarled Dennis, who clearly had to be part cockroach, “but you’re not all you’re cracked up to be. I’d even go so far to say you’re a lot less than you could be. Not I, though. I’m making use of all my resources. I have the magic of a high priestess and the mind of an inventor. I don’t know your alter-ego, or if you do anything other than this, but clearly you’re not as clever as I am.”

The traveler sucked in a breath as his back gave a jabbing feeling of pain.

“I may not have the flair you do, or the skill with it yet, but I’m definitely in your league.” Dennis knelt by the traveler and held him down. He yanked and the pain in the traveler’s back screamed at him—no, no, that was him screaming. But not for long. It wasn’t like the pain curse, which stretched time to an interminable prison. It was quick and then done. Dennis stood back. “I can hardly leave a knife in your back when we’re already such good friends. Now,” he said, as if speaking to a child, “what do we say?”

The traveler shoved aside the troubling realization he hadn’t even known he’d been stabbed and rolled over to grab Dennis’ knees. “We say ‘screw you.’” With a pull, Dennis crashed into the dais. “And we say ‘I should’ve made sure I killed you the first time.’”

He pressed a hand to Dennis’ forehead, an almost feral rage boiling through his reason. He poured all the anger and pain into one spell, which he hoped would wreak havoc on Dennis’ mind. It was the least he deserved, frankly. With any luck, the bastard would die with skinned knees and a busted ego. His brain, after all, would probably be burned out.

But the magic sputtered and dripped, then halted. The traveler fell back, too tired to continue to sit up. There was too much—

_Too much!_

Maybe, with all he’d been doing… What, out of everything, drained him the most?

Dennis blasted him with another brute-force spell. The traveler couldn’t bring himself to even kick back. There was just too much siphoning his energy and magic. He felt empty, or at least drained dry. What could he do to get it back? Where was his cane? What was he even _doing_ anymore?

“Someone’s up past their bedtime!” cheered Dennis. “I guess I’ll have to tuck you in. Get you all under the covers.”

Though where Dennis had lived that he could say ‘covers’ plural, the traveler didn’t know, he did know exactly what he had to do. And it was now or never.

It was his or Morgana’s and she was in far more danger if she was discovered. No, it had to be his. It had to be his own stolen, contrived face that he got rid of. Not that he wasn’t going to do it one day, but… now? In Camelot? In the middle of a life-threatening battle? Of course! The venue couldn’t very well be changed at the last minute when one had such a spectacular performance to give.

The traveler reached his fingers into his long hair and dragged his hands down his face, pulling the illusion away. He felt almost… naked without it. But he had enough energy for _something,_ alright.

“Get fucked, Dennis.”

Not caring how it ended up, the traveler let his magic come alive and run amok. It roared and screamed and raged, too long caged. Something hit a wall, and then a few more somethings. But most of it ended up building in Dennis, who was already holding more magic than he ever should’ve. Something clocked them both in the head, and they went flying in the gale.

The traveler felt stone against his cheek like an old friend and knew no more.

**~ A ~**

“Merlin, what was it you were saying about caution?” Arthur teased as he sauntered through his halls. It seemed that none of the mercenaries had actually made it inside. Emrys’ shield was working well, then.

‘I was _saying,_ you absolute nincompoop, that it never hurts,’ Merlin’s ghost snapped back. ‘Funny how you never listen to me, even when, by all accounts including your own, I’m you.’

“If I had a body for it, I would put you in the stocks.”

‘Oh, please. You have a body to put there, you just can’t endure tomatoes flying at your face for hours on end.’

“I _can too—”_

‘Oh, right, sure.’ Merlin’s ghost raised his pitch to a mocking one. ‘Oh! My delicate complexion! Without a manservant, how will I ever survive such an onslaught of rotten fruit! Such a tragedy for my royal person, I must say that the lot of you insurrecti—’

Arthur waited for whatever had caught Merlin’s attention, but… there was nothing. Only silence. Where a weight had been in his skull, there was nothing.

“Merlin?” he asked. “Merlin?”

He knew that the voice was gone, though. And it would not be returning. Calling out meant nothing because, for some reason, his imagination had been suffocated. A figment of his mind had been killed. Murdered. It wasn’t like Merlin could just _die._

Arthur stopped in his tracks because he’d just thought of something that wasn’t even real as _Merlin._ His friend was a voice now, and a dead one at that. What did that say?

But the two of them had agreed Emrys was going to the throne room. If anyone could fix this, it was the sorceror. The miracle and the curse all in one. The one man who knew anything about the voice who’d finally replaced an irreplaceable man. If Emrys was fine, then they’d be fine. He could carry Camelot on his shoulders and never sag. Arthur wished he could do the same.

Abandoning philosophy, Arthur charged down the hall to the throne room, hoping he wasn’t too late.

Arthur skidded to a halt at the door of the throne room. It was blasted off its hinges and one of the doors lay flat on the ground while the other hung awkwardly by some warped piece of metal in the hinge. He carefully avoided where it looked like it would fall and looked past the door, only to feel immediately sickened.

There was the corpse of the Duke, which Arthur hadn’t expected—though, hadn’t Emrys said something about him, just before the sound of the bear had lured him and the other knights to a trap set by Seta?—and it lay prone at the foot of the throne. There was no blood around him, but some dismal air hung about him as if a funeral shroud had already wrapped him. Seta—the unsuspected traitor, the child soldier, the prodigy, the _son_ —was curled by a column a little closer to the door, his eyes flicking nervously between the Duke and the last body of the room, the one Arthur dreaded looking at. Sure, Emrys was a bit rude sometimes and more than a little confusing, but they’d become friends of a sort over the past few weeks.

Emrys lay in a huddled, still heap on the floor, his druid robes wrinkled, singed, and bunched around his body. Blood pooled around him. Arthur already knew it was far more blood than Emrys was likely to survive losing.

Hastening to the side of his odd companion, Arthur murmured empty comforts. He didn’t know if they were for Emrys or himself. “You’ll be fine, Emrys. Percival told me you’re immeasurably powerful. That can’t just go away. You’ll stay alive, alright? For me, Emrys, just stay alive.” Using the sorceror’s name was… almost jarring. To think that this man, who’d so long been implicated in Merlin’s disappearance and rejected all monikers given to him, had a _name_ was simply outlandish. Gently, Arthur turned Emrys on his side. The only response was a groan. “You’re in bad shape, my friend. I’ll do something to slow the bleeding. I _will.”_ Arthur didn’t look at the man’s face, didn’t want to see the paleness of it or the hollows of his cheeks. It was easier to only look at the wound, which he could fix. At least for the time being.

A hand, thin and weak, grabbed Arthur’s. “I never thought I’d be your friend again,” croaked a heartbreakingly familiar voice.

Arthur’s gaze jolted to Emrys’ face—no, _Merlin’s_ face!

“Merlin! You—” Arthur cut himself off. He couldn’t deal with this now. If it was really Merlin, he needed to act fast. “You’re going to die if I don’t get you fixed up. Just—just hold on until I can get you to Gaius. Can you do that?”

Merlin’s hold only got tighter. “If I die, it will have been so you can see the sun shine again. And that will make it worth it.”

“You’re not going to die for me, Merlin. You’re _not.”_

Merlin blessed Arthur with a soft smile. “You never call me that,” he whispered, and his eyes rolled back in his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THANK YOU GUYS SO MUCH FOR WAITING FOR ME! And thank you all for reading this! I am so sorry it took me so long to FINALLY get around to posting. I got bogged down with adjusting to the school year again and then editing just took soooo long and I have worldbuilding for another project because I'm a fucking idiot so... it took many months. I am truly sorry for that.
> 
> Now, though! It is here! The reveal! The climax of this humongous monster is at last here and out for you all to read! Dennis is not a very serious antagonist, when it comes down to it. Mostly, the issue is social and between Arthur and Merlin, not between Dennis and ensemble. Still, he's fun to write since he's both malicious and an absolute idiot. What sort of evil sorcerer just stops in the middle of a fight to process the bullshit someone else has gone through? Especially when that someone is exactly who you're trying to kill? Dennis does, apparently.
> 
> Also, I'm sorry about the overall lack of Cool Lesbians in this, but there's no perspective for them :(. We instead get Dumb Bi Boys who are just Trying Their Best. ("At least Arthur's pretty.")
> 
> Please comment and tell me what you thought! To all my consistent commenters, I cannot say how much I adore you. Honestly. I start squealing when I see it. I just love you guys so much and a general 'thanks' in the A/N is long overdue, so here we are! ComposerEgg and RebelMage especially, the two of you are never-ending founts of encouragement and I'm so thankful.
> 
> Thanks to my 2 editors: WolvaraAsh and Paperweight-Jellyfish. The two of them are both on Tumblr and Instagram, though WA is also on Facebook and Twitter (last I checked). They're both super talented! Go check 'em out! (please support my artist friends, they work very hard)


	26. There's Only So Much You Can See With Just Two Eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scoot along, story line. C'mon, get

**~ A ~**

The next few hours passed in a blur. Arthur remembered cradling Merlin in his arms and trying to put one foot in front of the other, but he didn’t remember getting to Gaius’ chambers. When had Gwaine joined him?

Things got fuzzy after that too, but he remembered snatches of Leon’s report of the mercenary army either being dead or in retreat. He remembered sighing in relief, sinking into the floor next to Merlin’s bed. Merlin’s hand, limp and cold, dangled off the bed. Arthur remembered how it felt to tangle his fingers with Merlin’s. How had Merlin hidden so long? Why? What could’ve possibly stopped him from coming forward as soon as possible? Arthur couldn’t hurt him, would never have the cold-bloodedness to execute Merlin. But… 

He had.

He’d seen Merlin, albeit disguised, and sentenced him to death.

Arthur remembered crying, after that. Or maybe before. Maybe he was crying for most of it, really.

”Sire,” insisted a voice, as if this were the second or third or twentieth time they’d called. _“Arthur!”_

“Gaius,” he replied dully. His vision swam, but he could see the old physician in front of him.

“Thank goodness,” Gaius said, rocking back to his feet. He sounded like a badly-oiled door. “I was worried I had two patients.”

Arthur thought about that for a moment, baffled. There’d been a battle. “Surely you have more than two patients, Gaius. In the battle or people outside of the courtyard. Merlin—” He choked on Merlin’s name and pushed himself to his feet. “The courtyard! How is everyone? Are the knights alright? We had trouble with… Seta. And blood… Oh god.” He leaned forward and caught himself on the wall. “Seta betrayed us. He attacked us. My—my—”

“He didn’t,” Gaius interrupted. “Though Seta most certainly attacked you, it was not of his own will. He showed signs of possession by blood magic in my examination. I’ve moved him to a room I had Gwen and her paramour set up for victims of trauma.” Gaius frowned. “We have a lot of those, I’m afraid.”

Arthur could really only cling to one thing at a time, so he said, “Blood magic?” and didn’t move.

“Yes, sire. The sort only parents can use.” Gaius paused. “Only parents by blood, that is. Seta was then compelled to create the sigil that caught you and the other knights. He has had a rather frightening ordeal.”

With a bark of a laugh, Arthur began to cry again. “Haven’t we all?”

Gaius’ voice softened. “Yes, sire, we have.”

—

Though Arthur didn’t remember getting there, he woke up in his bed. Light streamed in through the windows and birds had long since heralded the day. By now, they’d moved into mid-morning hymns. Arthur only stared at the canopy of his bed. What could he do? He had Merlin, at long last. But… it wasn’t how he’d dreamed. When he thought of finding Merlin, it was always in a distant land, the wonderful idiot confused but ultimately fine. Not bleeding out. Certainly not half dead and also the sorceror Arthur’d blamed for Merlin’s disappearance for the last nine months.

“Damn it, Merlin,” he said to the empty room. “Why is nothing ever easy with you?”

At long last, Arthur couldn’t excuse lying in bed any longer. He rolled out and barely managed to land on his feet. Some king he was.

He was dressed, which was good. He was also dressed in what he’d been wearing when he’d fallen asleep, sans armor, which was not good. At the very least, it was the sort of thing Merlin would make fun of him for, if he knew. In fact, it was the sort of thing Merlin _could_ make fun of him for when he woke up. Maybe wearing the same thing was a good thing after all.

Deciding he didn’t care, Arthur pulled on his boots and thundered through the castle to Gaius’ chambers. The citadel was relatively untouched, given Emr—given _Merlin’s_ efforts. A blessing, then. Servants practically threw themselves out of his way but the only thing Arthur could think at that was at least they weren’t throwing themselves away from swords, and found that he couldn’t regret how he was making his way. He was alive and it seemed like everyone else was too, so why care?

He barged into Gaius’ chambers without knocking.

“Sire—” Gaius said, trying to stop him.

“Later,” Arthur snapped.

It was a shame he didn’t look back. Gaius’ supreme look of doom was an entertainment few claimed not to enjoy.

He wrenched the door to Merlin’s chambers open and was met with the deadly force of Ana’s glare. Ana, who’d threatened to kill him if anything happened to her friend. _To Merlin,_ Arthur realized. Did she know who he was? Had she always? Arthur couldn’t recognize him so why… 

“If you try to do anything to him, I’ll see to it personally that you burn in hell,” she said, likely as a greeting.

“You knew,” Arthur gasped.

Her eyes narrowed. “Knew what?”

“Even before this,” Arthur gestured vaguely at Merlin’s sleeping form, “you knew that he was… who he is. You knew the whole time.”

“I sure did.” Her back straightened. “And I’ll protect him. We have _plans,_ Arthur. He meant to leave today. I can still get him out with Malleum’s help, so don’t make me.”

Arthur’s mind whirled. Merlin meant to leave. He trusted a stranger more than Arthur. What on earth…?

“Who the hell are you?” Arthur asked. Merlin wouldn’t trust Morgana, would he? Ana couldn’t be Morgana, if Merlin trusted her. Even Merlin knew better than that.

“I’m his friend.”

“Not in Camelot, you weren’t.”

“I was,” she insisted.

“Were you a servant? I’d have seen you.”

With a bitter laugh, Ana said, “Oh, you saw me alright.”

“No, I really didn’t. Is this a joke?” Something clicked. “You know his _name,_ right? You haven’t said it.”

“He’s chosen not to use it, so I call him my friend.”

“But you know what it is?”

Ana nodded and brushed Merlin’s hair out of his eyes. Something sparked. “I know both of them.”

Arthur rubbed at his eyes. How much did he not know? “Both of them?”

Ana nodded again. “Yes. I know all of them. And I suspect that if I don’t say anything without prompting, we’ll be here until we’re both too old to do shit. So let me say it now: I know him. I know what you did to him. And I know how he feels about you. You’re an asshole, in my opinion, but you’re an asshole he cares about. If nothing else, we’ve got that in common.”

“You’ve managed to be both incredibly vague and rather specific, and I think I’m going back to bed.”

With a grin, Ana waved him off. “It looks like you need it.” She leaned over and kissed Merlin’s forehead. Merlin glowed for a second and it faded the moment Ana wasn’t touching him. “I could use a nap too.” But she didn’t leave. She grabbed a cushion from a stack on the floor and and lay down on the ground next to Merlin’s bed, shifting a few times so she could lie comfortably and take Merlin’s hand in hers. The glow started up again and she didn’t let go. She yawned, a smile on her face. “See you later, Arthur.”

Arthur backed out of the room and closed the door softly.

“Gaius,” he said, only a few steps away from Merlin’s room, “I need answers. What happened to Merlin?”

Gaius stalled, bustling around his chambers and doing nothing. Eventually, when Arthur cleared his throat, Gaius sighed and pulled out a chair for Arthur. “You should know before I start that this is a hypothesis. I need to ask Merlin and run some tests. But for right now, all I have is a hypothesis. It matches with what we know, but I could still be wrong. Quite wrong.”

“Tell me anything you know,” Arthur pleaded.

“Well, he probably had a couple things happen to him. There’s a few potential causes for most everything, but you must understand, I just don’t know anything for certain yet.” Gaius shifted in his chair and looked back at the closed door. “There must have been more than one thing to reach this effect. He probably had a memory spell cast on him and possibly the knife he mentioned led to his pain and exhaustion. The voice of Merlin that you heard, sire, could very well be a symptom that narrows down what spell he was hit with. But it is also possible that your mind made it yourself as a way to cope. There are few ways to tell. Still, the poor boy has had a very rough nine months.”

“What memory spell is your leading contender right now?”

Gaius retrieved a massive tome from one of his shelves and dropped it with a ‘thump’ on the table. He flipped through it until he reached one page with a diagram of… something. It looked a bit like a diagrammed sentence, but there was clearly some other goal. “This is a spell consequence chart. Here,” Gaius pointed to the words on the far left which weren’t even in a language Arthur could read, “is the origin point. It describes the basic intent of a spell and the style of spell. This one says ‘memory alteration, oblong.’ So it is less manageable than other spells could be. A more straightforward style, though a lot more damaging, would be a triangular one. This, though, left us with about two dozen possible side-effects. They range from hearing loss to incorporeality, all with varying likelihoods. Personally, if we presume that Merlin’s voice is connected, then I think this path,” he traced his finger along a branch of the chart, “is most likely what occurred. Side-effects here include physical alteration to the point of be a glamour equivalent, exhaustion, and a small chance of ghost-like remnants left with important people. Merlin’s affliction seems to fit it.”

Arthur thought about how Merlin-as-Emrys had been almost as affectionate, almost as snarky, almost as _Merlin,_ and couldn’t bring himself to agree. “The only physical change of the spell was to his appearance?”

“Yes, sire.”

“What—” Arthur’s voice cracked. “What about the scars?”

“All real, I’m afraid. The new ones were badly treated, likely by Merlin himself while he was on the move. The old ones… well, we can’t do anything about them.” Gaius fetched a roll of paper and spread it out on the table for Arthur to see. It was a diagram of a human body, both front and back, with marks of scars. On the side was a legend describing the shape and possible causes. “Here’s all of them. I examined him yesterday. He’s terribly unhealthy, I’m sorry to say. I’m not sure how long he would’ve survived doing things the way he was.”

Arthur gave him a noncommittal ‘mm’ and looked over the diagram again. The scars Arthur knew about were not nearly as bad as the ones he’d never seen before. Though there was a burn scar up to Merlin’s elbow, a much larger burn scar marred his chest. The only cause for it listed was ‘fire,’ which Arthur found suspicious. Everything else had detailed notes in Gaius’ scrawl, listing how old it was and every possible variation of a cause, damage, and age. But not that scar.

“Gaius,” said Arthur, pointing to it. He didn’t need to say anything else.

Gaius paled.

“Just tell me, please.”

Gaius shook his head. “No. Merlin should tell you himself.”

“And what if he can’t?” Arthur demanded. “What if he never wakes up? Or he does but he’s never the same? What then?”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it, sire,” Gaius replied, standing his ground. “I won’t tell you until I know that Merlin can’t. I can tell you how everything else happened, but not that. It’s not my secret to share.”

Arthur remembered Gaius’ last attempt to dodge questions about Merlin’s life. Gaius certainly knew more than he was letting on. He’d said then that Merlin risked his life repeatedly and often. So the scar on his chest in a circle so perfect it could only have been magic must’ve been gained on one of these private expeditions to save Arthur’s life. That was only answer. Arthur closed his eyes tiredly. He had to wait.

“How about this one?” he asked, pointing to a scar on Merlin’s lower back that looked like a bee sting in the shape of an upside-down teardrop. Though the description was detailed, Gaius had left the ‘cause’ section blank. “What’s this?”

“There’s only one thing I know of,” answered Gaius hesitantly. “But if it is what I think it is, Merlin should’ve died a long time ago.”

Arthur’s voice was strangled in his throat. “What?”

The old physician sighed. “I believe it to be a serket sting, sire. Deadly to everyone and an immensely painful way to go. How Merlin got it… I don’t even want to think.”

“What else?” Arthur asked. “I barely remember what happened yesterday. How did it end? Did we win?”

Gaius nodded. “We won alright. The Duke of Dore, who Ana identified as a man named ‘Dennis,’ was the ringleader for the whole mess. He was the one who brought the army here and he killed Dame Tane’s first spy. He was, near as I can tell, Seta’s father. It’s unclear when Dennis started influencing him, but by the time the funeral started, Seta had no control over his actions. Merlin took control of the situation in the town square. He probably saved the lives of everyone in attendance. They listened to him and he was good with what he instructed them to do. He organized all of them.”

“Not to mention the shield and the lightning,” Arthur said wryly.

Gaius stiffened and, slowly, nodded. “Yes. That too.”

Arthur narrowed his eyes. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know.”

“No, sire, I—I was hoping that you didn’t. It would make it easier, maybe. It’s possible, by the way, that the sorceror wasn’t Merlin.” Gaius didn’t even sound like he was convinced. “He could’ve been replaced. Or the sorceror held him. Or they knew each other and Merlin was already wounded.”

“Gaius,” Arthur said partially bemused and partially impatient, “stop trying to throw me off. Merlin and Emrys have the same scars on their faces, so it’s got to be the same one. I know that Merlin is the sorceror. Frankly, it’s the only thing that makes any sense.”

“I was hoping we could get through this without Merlin being exposed like this,” confessed Gaius.

“Well, if we were to find out that Merlin was also Emrys, I would’ve known anyway. I only saw him use magic some fifty times,” scoffed Arthur, rolling his eyes. “Honestly, you thought you could hide that from me?”

“I’ve done a pretty good job these last six years,” Gaius grumbled.

“Is that how long you’ve known?”

Gaius answered with only a nod.

“So you’ve known since he arrived, then?”

A nod again.

“Did he tell you?” It made a sort of sense that Merlin would tell Gaius and not the actual crown prince of the kingdom that habitually executed people like him, but it still hurt Arthur’s pride a little.

“No, sire,” said Gaius, to Arthur’s chagrin. “He saved my life when I took a tumble. I’ve been covering for him since.”

Arthur nodded absently, turning the information over in his head. If Merlin had never properly told anyone, then he hadn’t trusted anyone to keep the secret. At least it meant that Arthur wasn’t a special case of Merlin’s distrust. Small comfort it was, now that he was lying in his bed, unconscious.

But… who really _was_ Ana? If she was Morgana as Arthur suspected, why did Merlin trust her?

Arthur thanked Gaius for his time and hurried off to find his knights.

—

Leon was the first knight he ran into, quite literally. Arthur plowed into Leon, who steadied him easily. Leon, his childhood friend. Leon, who’d known him from the beginning and stayed with him through every stumble.

“Arthur? Are you okay?”

Leon still didn’t let go of Arthur, since the king hadn’t pulled away or indicated he could deal on his own. Arthur moved into a hug instead. “No, Leon.” He was close to sobbing, which he couldn’t just _do_ in the hall. He was the king, and kings didn’t do that. Just like they didn’t chase butterflies or cry over dogs or… or… “I’m not okay and I don’t know how to be.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Leon asked, rubbing Arthur’s back. “We could go back to my room.”

With a lump in his throat the size of a grapefruit and tears welling up in his eyes, Arthur didn’t trust himself to speak. He only nodded. Leon, a small smile on his face, pulled away and led Arthur down the hall, a hand resting on his back. They didn’t speak until they were in Leon’s room and the door was shut. Arthur immediately sat on Leon’s bed and pushed himself to the wall.

“You know,” Leon said, sitting at his desk, “the last time I sat you down on my bed like this, you were nine and had skinned your knee.”

“I remember,” whispered Arthur, nodding.

“You didn’t want your father to find out it’d happened when you were chasing a frog around one of the Lesser Gardens, so I took you back to my room in the knight barracks. I only had a room because I was training to be a commander, remember that?” Leon smiled and poured out a glass of water, which Arthur took gratefully. “You were so short then. And I remember how red your face was because you felt like the world would end if Uther knew that you’d skinned your knee. You fell asleep on my bed, you did. I had to tell Uther I’d worn you out training.”

Arthur shook his head. “You didn’t have to.”

“You were nine, Arthur. I was fifteen. Of course I was going to cover for you.” Leon leaned back in his chair. “What’s the matter?”

Arthur curled in on himself. “Merlin.”

“Yes, Arthur,” Leon said gently. “I heard you found him.”

“More than that,” croaked Arthur. “He was Emrys, the sorceror. He was under our noses the whole time and we never noticed him. He was getting hurt but he was alive and we never found him. He was _alive_ this whole time but we didn’t—” Arthur choked on air. “We didn’t do anything.”

“We did everything we could. Merlin was the sorceror, you say?” Leon waited for Arthur’s confirming nod. “Well, no one could recognize him. So magic had to be involved, and we can’t do anything against magic anyway, so it’s pointless to think about what-ifs. Whoever cast it clearly didn’t want him to be found.” Leon looked away, clearly trying to figure out how to skirt around the possibility of Merlin casting it himself. “You can’t blame yourself.”

“Merlin doesn’t want to be here,” said Arthur mournfully. “He was going to leave.”

Leon shrugged at that, not sure how to explain it away. “What did Gaius say about it?”

“He said Merlin might’ve suffered from a memory spell with side-effects. It would’ve been the cause of his fatigue, the fact we couldn’t recognize him, and… the voice I heard.” Leon didn’t react to the last revelation. He only waved his hand and invited Arthur to continue. Arthur struggled to keep his voice steady. “But I have to say that I disagree. Merlin still acted like Merlin while he was in disguise. He just didn’t have the same tics. He spoke a little differently. Still, he treated all of us much the same.”

Leon nodded. “I didn’t see much of the sorceror, but he was a lot like Merlin, if Merlin was capable of being sullen. You saw more than I did, though, sire. I’ll trust your judgment of it.”

“He always seemed sad,” Arthur agreed. His hands were shaking and he found the scarf in his pocket again. “There was something wrong the whole time and I wish I’d known earlier so I could _help_ him. But Ana kept covering for him. She lied and said he wasn’t Merlin. I asked her about his memory and she said it was _fine._ So she kept him hidden and kept him from our help! Why—” he choked on his words. “Why wouldn’t she let us help him?”

“I don’t know, Arthur,” said Leon softly. He shrugged helplessly. “Maybe she wanted to keep him safe and didn’t know the right way to do it.”

“But now…” Arthur heaved a sob which left him gasping for air. Tears streamed down his face and he started to hyperventilate. “I don’t—I couldn’t—he might never wake—” a gasp, “—up. He could just— _die,_ Leon.”

Arthur hadn’t cried like this in years, maybe even decades, but he needed to. He needed to get everything out in aborted gasps and hiccups. It was the only way he could.

“He might, yes. But he might not.” Leon moved to sit next to Arthur on the bed. Through his tears, Arthur glimpsed red stains on Leon’s hands. “Think of everything else he’s lived through. Something as minor as this won’t keep him down. Merlin’s too resilient for that. Not to mention, he cares about you. He cares about all of Camelot. He wouldn’t give up on it and die. He’s got to keep working on us, because that’s what he does.”

Arthur heaved a little more. Leon rubbed his back and murmured to him that he was okay and Merlin would be okay too. Arthur didn’t know if he believed him.

“Do you think you can go talk to the other knights now?” Leon asked.

“Sure,” Arthur agreed. “Yeah.”

—

Arthur and Leon arrived together at Gwaine’s room. Arthur watched Leon’s face when he knocked on the door. Something off about his eyes. It looked like red veins emanated from the edges of his eyes and surrounded the iris in one pulsing army.

“What’s in your eye?” asked Arthur.

Leon looked at him in surprise. “Arthur, you were there when Gaius explained it us.” At Arthur’s shrug, Leon continued, “Gaius told us they’re the equivalent of scars for blood magic. The red in our eyes will fade soon, but the other glyphs will stick around for a while. You recovered from them pretty quickly, but you also fell asleep pretty quickly after the conversation. Sleep might have something to do with your recovery.”

Arthur nodded and knocked on Gwaine’s door again. Seriously, Leon and Arthur had time to talk about the weird redness in their eyes but Gwaine couldn’t open the door already? Perhaps sensing, Arthur’s annoyance, the door swung inwards to Gwaine, whose face was haggard. He cracked a mirthless grin and said, “Morning, sleeping beauty. Care to come in?”

Leon and Arthur filed in. Even though they’d been intending to collect all the knights for a group talk, this would be fine. Percival was sitting at the the desk, fiddling with something in his pocket. Elyan leaned against the far wall. With five knights and a room designed for only one, it was a tight squeeze.

Arthur peered at Gwaine and Percival. Percival, who’d fallen near the center of the sigil if Arthur recalled correctly, had red glyphs marching up his neck and circling his fingers like a nobleman’s gaudy rings. His eyes had almost no white left, only a glowing red around his brown irises. Gwaine, on the other hand, had glyphs few and far between. One was on the back of his neck, another on the palm of his right hand, and a third on his elbow. Only his left eye had any noticeable red. He itched at it constantly. Elyan rubbed at his neck, which was ringed with glyphs in a wave pattern. They stood stark against his skin and looked like they’d been bleeding. On closer inspection, there was blood under Elyan’s fingernails. He’d been scratching them, then.

“So?” Gwaine prompted. His leg started bouncing.

“Merlin’s back,” Arthur said, not sure how to explain it.

“Yes,” Gwaine agreed, “I helped you get him to Gaius. I was the only one awake when you passed the trap corridor again.”

Leon rested his hand on Arthur’s shoulder. “Arthur’s a little fuzzy on the events of yesterday. Gaius told me he likely went into shock; possibly a delayed reaction to the sigil that knocked us out. He said something like ‘psychogenic something or other,’ too. Apparently that’s brought on by stress.”

“Maybe he should be sitting down, then,” Percival suggested.

“Or in bed,” Elyan added. Arthur insisted he didn’t need to go to sleep, but the other four knights persuaded him to take a seat. Once Arthur was situated, once again, on a bed and curled against a wall, Gwaine asked, “What else happened yesterday? How did Merlin get back?”

“Merlin’s been back for a while,” Arthur answered. He sat on his hands, which were shaking. “He was the sorceror Emrys. _Is_ the sorceror Emrys, I suppose. I don’t think he ever stopped being Emrys. He’s just not disguised anymore.”

“I called it!” Gwaine hopped off the desk and clapped Percival on the back. “You owe me a drink!” He started pacing, though he couldn’t move very much in the cramped room, suddenly all business. “Who was responsible for him being disguised?”

“I think,” Arthur said slowly, “that Merlin disguised himself and something went wrong. Or Morgana disguised him and that’s why she’s been hanging around.”

Leon, who hadn’t heard any of Arthur’s conversations with Ana-possibly-Morgana, rubbed at his temples as if his life depended on it. “Morgana’s been hanging around? Just, in the castle. She’s just been here, not doing anything?”

“I’m not sure it’s Morgana, actually.” Arthur rearranged himself so he looked a little more regal. “At one point, I was almost certain. But Emrys—Merlin—told me that she just was named after Morgana and she was no relation at all. I thought he might be lying. But now, since I know who Emrys is underneath, I don’t understand how he could side with her, if Ana is Morgana.”

“Wait,” Elyan interrupted. “My sister’s girlfriend is Morgana?”

“She _might_ be Morgana,” Arthur corrected. “I don’t know for sure.”

“Great. So someone who might possibly be Morgana, who is the sworn enemy of our country and also attacked us multiple times and has a personal vendetta against everyone associated with Camelot is dating my sister. Fantastic.”

Gwaine shook out his hands as he paced. He flung them back and forth, looking more jittery by the second. “And Merlin… He’s friends with her?”

“Yes, if Ana is Morgana.” Arthur creased his forehead, thinking. “I mean, you’ve seen them together. Thick as thieves, the two of them. However that happened, they’re not going to be parted happily.”

“Do you think he’s in danger?” Percival asked.

“Not from her.”

“Then…” Elyan hummed. He rubbed at his neck again. “Why not leave her be? It seems like the only issue with it is that Ana hates the lot of us. She’s not going to hurt Merlin, and anyone else can take her, probably. I think you mentioned that she used to have magic but doesn’t anymore, last time we talked.”

“What about your sister?” Leon pointed out.

“She can beat the crap out of most people. I’m worried about her, sure, but she can take care of herself.” Elyan rubbed harder at his neck. “Honestly, she’s probably at least as good as I am with a sword, if she isn’t better. We grew up around them; it’s hard not to learn.”

A contemplative silence descended on Gwaine’s room. Arthur broke it at last, when he said casually, “I’ve been thinking about knighting her, actually.”

Elyan looked up. “Who?”

“Your sister, of course. With all she did yesterday, she’s more than capable. And it would be better to have her as a knight in official capacity than leaving her to act alone. I can only hope that she actually _wants_ the position.”

Gwen’s brother grinned. “Hell yeah, it would be! We can’t have her fit herself for armor though…”

The talk of Gwen’s knighting persisted for several hours until Gwaine shooed them all out of his room to go get lunch. They walked briskly through the halls together, laughing as their conversation moved from Gwen’s imminent promotion to the same rank as her brother to what the cook had made for lunch this time around. They could keep their minds off Merlin this way; food and family swallowed their thoughts and kept the dread at bay.

—

For the next few days, life at the castle had slowed to a crawl. Though news slipped through the cracks and a fair few people had _heard_ Merlin had been found, but facts were few and far between for the people of Camelot. About a quarter of the population was either injured or in the trauma center Gwen and Ana had set up and there were a few deaths that the people were mourning. Arthur went to all the funerals he was told about and sent flowers to those he couldn’t make it to. The body of Dennis, the unmasked Duke of Dore, was buried in a plot of shitty land a few miles away from the kingdom. By the third day after his burial, someone left a sign by it that read ‘Gender Neutral Bathroom’ and someone else had left one saying ‘Practice Spitting! Win a Prize’. The prize was not specified. Arthur left the citizens to their rightful revenge and didn’t infringe on the grave again.

Instead, Arthur visited Merlin in bed every day. Merlin didn’t wake up, and indeed barely seemed alive, but Arthur felt better seeing his friend. Ana, after sensing his routine, had decided to sleep in the room Arthur had given her and Merlin. It was only a few floors down and generally more comfortable than sleeping on the floor, so apparently, she’d deemed it acceptable. Arthur would pass her in the halls every day, though, when she came up to sit with Merlin and he headed down to train with the knights. 

They never spoke with each other.

Until five days after Merlin’s reveal, when Merlin was getting a little more color in his cheeks and he looked _marginally_ healthier. Then, when Arthur and Ana crossed paths outside Gaius’ door, Arthur addressed her by the name he’d suspected for a while, “Sister.”

Ana—now most certainly Morgana—stopped dead in her tracks.

“It really is you,” Arthur said, perhaps more to himself than to his sister.

Morgana turned, ever so slowly, to face Arthur. “What are you going to do about it?”

“I don’t know. I just… I wanted to be sure. And you’re dating Gwen, so I’m a little worried for her. And you, really. I know how fallouts with Gwen can be.” Arthur pinched himself. “I say Gwen because I don’t know about any other fallouts, but I bet the result could be similar anyway.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Arthur?”

“I mean, you should tell her. It’ll be worse if she finds out and it’s not from you.”

Morgana curved her lip into a snarl. “You can’t tell me what to do.”

“I’m _not,_ Morgana.” Arthur crossed his arms. “I’m saying that you should be careful and you should be honest because it’ll be better in the long run. Also, and this isn’t really related to Gwen, I just want to say… I’m sorry. When our father was on the throne, I should’ve been more independent. I should’ve listened to you and noticed how you changed. I’m sorry I didn’t treat you better then, and I wish I had but I didn’t. Now, everything’s so different but you’re _back_ and you helped Merlin, so… I guess I want a chance to make it up to you.”

Morgana took a step back, surprised. Arthur still couldn’t see the resemblance between what she looked like now and what she’d used to look like, but maybe that’d come in time. “I’ll give you that chance, I guess.”

“Thanks, Morgana.” Arthur turned back down the hallway to go out to the training fields and work through how he felt about this on a training dummy when he heard Morgana say something else.

“Arthur!”

He looked over his shoulder at her. She seemed to be struggling to get the words out. She made a face and sighed.

“Thank you for your open-mindedness. New or not, I’m glad of it.”

Arthur just shrugged. “Thank the people around me for that. I wouldn’t have done it without them.”

Morgana nodded, and said, “Well, you have good friends. They’re from all walks of life, I’ve heard, and they care about you. Cherish that.”

—

A few days later, the news of Merlin’s return and identity had spread to the whole castle. Gaius was restrictive in who could visit his ward, but a pile of gifts accumulated daily in front of Gaius’ chambers. Every morning, Arthur would arrive and sort through it. The shirts and pants he put away in Merlin’s room, the jewelry he put in a box that was another gift. He put the box in Merlin’s room too, but he was careful about it. Flowers bloomed out of every crevice of Gaius’ rooms that Arthur could fit them in, and books were piled high around Gaius’ chambers. Some of them had personalized notes inside the cover and others were just books, bound carefully and embossed with gorgeous titles.

Arthur, every morning, marveled again at the love Camelot had for Merlin. Though many people were loved only in death, Merlin had a family in life too.

Family, of course, reminded Arthur of Hunith, who really needed to be told that she was right, that her son was alive after all and had been the whole time. She’d probably want to come and see Merlin. Maybe he’d wake when his mother was there. Hopefully, he would.

That morning, the pile of gifts was somewhat disturbed.

Usually, anyone who left gifts was careful to stack them so it wouldn’t obstruct the path or the door. Today, though, it looked as though a gust of wind had whipped down the hall and knocked over some of the gifts. It would probably be best to check on Gaius rather than sticking to his routine, though Arthur itched to clean up the hallway before someone else came through.

He poked his head in through the door and called, “Gaius?”

“Here, sire. Come on in.”

Arthur entered to Gaius poring over a book about spells. Arthur recognized the spell consequence charts he’d looked over a week ago. Gaius’ hair was in disarray and his lips were tight.

“What’s going on, Gaius?”

Gaius looked up, his face pained. “Merlin…”

“Yes?”

“Merlin woke up, if it can be called that. He recognized where he was, I believe, and muttered about needing to find you, but he…” Gaius trailed off again, his eyes growing misty. “He jumped when I said his name, as if he didn’t realize I was there or was unfamiliar with being called Merlin, I’m not sure. He left in quite a hurry after that. He looked awful, even for a man in his condition.”

“You mean even for someone who lost most of their blood and has been incurably tired for the last few months?” Arthur asked, a raised eyebrow covering his concern.

“Yes, sire.”

Arthur gave him a curt nod. “Well, he’ll probably go to my room, then. If he’s looking for me, that is. I’ll check there. Will you tell Morgana that he’s missing? She’ll help us find him, probably.”

Gaius gave a start at the name ‘Morgana,’ and stood up as quickly as his old bones would allow. “Morgana is here? How do you know?”

“She’s been here as long as Merlin has—she’s his friend Ana. I overheard them talking and Merlin called her ‘Morgana’ and I asked him about it later. He lied, of course, about her, but then I asked her a few days ago and she admitted it.” Arthur rubbed the scarf in his pocket back and forth. “She’s different. Not as angry, or at least not as murderous. And I think she only cares that Merlin recovers now, rather than the throne of Camelot belonging to her. There’s no reason to be concerned, really.”

Shaking his head, Gaius said, “Go. Just go find Merlin,” and Arthur was dismissed.

He strode through the halls, keeping an ear out for strange sounds. Close to Gaius’ chambers, he heard murmurs of Merlin being out of bed, but the rumors stopped when he came close enough to ask about them. The further he went, the more it seemed that Merlin had taken a different route to avoid being noticed. That was fine. He didn’t need a half-delirious Merlin _and_ a castle in uproar.

At his door, Arthur stopped and listened. There were shuffling sounds from the other side, consistent with Merlin’s movement. Arthur smiled to himself, relieved. Good, he’d found him.

He cracked open the door.

Inside, Merlin bustled about. He brushed his fingers against every surface he could get his hands on and stopped a few times to stare at his right hand and mutter, “I swear this happens later.”

Arthur pushed his way inside and shut the door softly. “Merlin?”

Merlin jumped and whirled around to the door from where he was brushing the quilt on Arthur’s bed. “Ah! I knew you’d be here.”

“Yes, Merlin,” Arthur said slowly, edging closer to his friend, “this is my room. I usually come back here sooner or later. Why don’t we get you to Gaius and you can tell me all about it?”

“Gaius isn’t here, Arthur. We’re the only people here, until it ends. No one but us, but that’s one more than usual.” He avoided Arthur by circling the table as Arthur did the same, a rueful smile on his face. “If we want to keep talking, you shouldn’t be too near me, yet. We might not get another chance to talk for a while.”

“What are you talking about, Merlin?” Arthur stopped moving, with Merlin across the table from him. It was only a meager three feet of wood, but it kept them separated as well as a wall. “Why can’t we be close? We haven’t touched in ages. It doesn’t count when I carried you—I didn’t know it was you, then.”

Merlin pulled back, surprised or confused, Arthur wasn’t sure. “Well, you _could_ touch me, but it’d hurt.”

Arthur pulled back as well. “Why would it hurt?”

With a shrug that said Merlin was far too resigned to his fate to care, Merlin replied, “I don’t know the _why_ of it. I just know that it _does.”_

“Merlin, I don’t understand.”

Merlin, a sad smile on his face, leaned forward again and told Arthur simply, “This is a dream, Arthur.” He turned and walked away, over to the window, and stared out.

Arthur followed him, careful not to touch Merlin just in case he was right. “This is _not_ a dream, Merlin. I’m awake. I remember waking up. I remember checking on you in Gaius’ rooms and you were gone and now you’re here and I can’t believe we’re actually talking together.”

Still looking at the courtyard below, which was clear of any decorations for the funeral service save the druid charms, Merlin shook his head. “Of course it’s a dream, Arthur. I’m only called ‘Merlin’ in the dreams we share.”

“You knew?” Arthur had to restrain himself from grabbing Merlin and shaking him. “You knew that we saw each other in the night?”

“The dreams are magic, Arthur, as am I, which I suppose you ought to know.” Merlin slipped away again, this time to the other side of the bed. “I can sense them, same way you can smell sausages in the mornings. And every dream we share ends the same way: you touch me and it hurts and then I wake up.”

Again, Arthur followed him. “I swear, Merlin, this isn’t a dream.”

Merlin shifted, stiffening, as if bracing himself. “Fine, then. Test it. I’ve had enough of this anyway—I don’t want to explain this anymore.”

Warily, Arthur reached out his hands to cup Merlin’s face. One part of his brain thought Merlin was about to jump at him with a ‘boo!’ and cackle for Arthur being so silly, but this was too serious for that. Merlin would never be that cruel.

Arthur’s hands tingled even before he was really touching Merlin, but then they pressed into the cold skin of Merlin’s cheeks and Arthur was struck dumb with the realization that Merlin was _really there,_ not just his imagination or an oneiric illusion. This was _Merlin,_ really and truly. Merlin seemed to realize then that he wasn’t in any sort of horrific pain, and sagged into Arthur’s grip.

“Oh, goddess,” he muttered, “by the stars, it’s real. I’m not… This isn’t a dream, but you…” Arthur felt the warmth of tears against his shirt and shifted his hands to hold Merlin better. He rubbed Merlin’s back. “You’re touching me. You know… and you’re still here.”

“Of course, Merlin. Where would I go?”

Merlin passed out after that and Arthur carried him through the halls, reveling in Merlin’s _being_ the whole way.

—

The next time they talked, Merlin was sitting up in bed. Gaius had kept him in his rooms with far more ease now that Merlin wasn’t questioning the reality of his surroundings. He still spent most his time sleeping, but he was awake _enough_ and that was what was really important: he wasn’t dead, he didn’t seem to have any permanent brain damage, and he was awake.

Merlin wasn’t wearing a shirt since Gaius had been treating his various injuries and hadn’t wanted to deal with it. The hole in his back where he’d been stabbed in his fight with Dennis was sewn up now and the cut on his side, which Arthur had noticed even when Merlin hadn’t, was treated as well. Still, the scars that decorated the rest of Merlin’s body were, as of yet, still a mystery and Merlin was, only now, aware enough to explain himself.

When Arthur entered, they just looked at each other for a few minutes before Merlin finally said, “Hey, Arthur.”

“Good afternoon.”

“Why’re you looking at me like that?” Merlin scooted backward a little, closer to the wall. “I’m guessing you want something.”

“Yeah,” Arthur admitted, “I guess I do.”

“What do you want, then?” Merlin’s voice had a worried edge to it, such that he sounded almost scared.

“I want to know about the scars, Merlin.” Arthur sat next to Merlin on the thin bed and gestured to the curving scar that cut through Merlin’s lip. “Like this, for instance. How did you even _get_ this? What position could you have been in to get this?”

Merlin looked away. “I caught my face on a knife.”

His voice dead, Arthur said, “Really.”

“Someone was holding the knife,” Merlin offered. “I’m not _that_ clumsy.”

Arthur sighed. _Really,_ could Merlin not tell that all he wanted to know was what had happened? Why was it so difficult to get a straight answer from him? Arthur knelt in front of Merlin and brushed his thumbs gently at the thin scars at the edges of Merlin’s face. “And these? You didn’t get these by catching your face on a knife.”

Merlin pushed Arthur’s hands away. “I had to jump out of a window.”

“You had to jump out of a window?” Arthur rubbed at his face tiredly. “What— _why?_ What possessed you to do _that?”_

Merlin’s eyebrows furrowed together. Arthur couldn’t stop himself from smiling, endeared as he was.

“You know,” Merlin said eventually, “I don’t really remember anymore. I was so busy at first, you know, with how I was trying to save all the sorcerors I could from harassment or execution. I was probably being chased, but…”

Arthur patted Merlin’s shoulder, careful not to aggravate any injuries. “How often were you hurt like this, Merlin?”

Too late, Arthur realized his mistake as Merlin flinched at his name. Arthur pulled back, his hands up.

“I’m sorry, Arthur,” Merlin whispered. “It’s taking a while to get used to. It doesn’t feel real. Whenever it starts to, the—my name ruins it. I’m not really… ready yet. For a lot of things, you know. But the scars, I can do. I can talk about my scars. I know they’re real. It’s still weird to think that you know everything about me, now. Since I’ve been hiding it for years, I mean. I’m just waiting to catch up with it all.”

“Alright. What would you like me to call you instead, for now?”

“You could call me your friend like Ana does. Or you could call me Emrys, I suppose, since I’ve become a little desensitized to that and it’s not much of a shock.” Merlin fidgeted with his blanket, one that someone had left for him a few days ago. Arthur had taken it in himself and laid it on Merlin, who had looked so peaceful in his sleep. Arthur didn’t like standing around when Merlin was asleep without talking to him, but that morning, Arthur had just stayed for a moment, letting the silence stretch on. He’d left soon after, but that snatch of peace had stayed with him.

“Then I will call you my friend.”

Merlin gave an awkward thumbs up, but it pulled on his side and, with a grimace, he dropped his hands to his side again.

“Why is there a burn the size of a dinner plate on your chest, Mer—my friend?” Merlin tried to cover the burn with his arms but was unsuccessful.

“Would you believe I was hit with a frying pan just taken off the stove?” 

“No, I would not. Not when Gaius hid the cause as he did. And if you’d been hit with a burning frying pan, he would’ve told me and you would’ve gotten the day off. As it is, I don’t know why, how, or when you got this burn.” Arthur shook his head reproachfully. “Gaius didn’t tell me anything when we were looking at your injuries a week ago and he hasn’t said anything since. He told me that you were to explain it and if you couldn’t, we’d address that when the time came. Since you’re conscious and well enough now, I’d like some answers.”

“It’s not very pleasant,” Merlin offered, no doubt trying to defer explaining.

Arthur shook his head again. “None of this is. Come on, now.”

Merlin sighed. “Well, it’s magic. I suppose you guessed as much and I shouldn’t have to start with that, but I’ll say it all the same: it’s a scar from a magic fireball. It’s also one of my oldest scars, so it doesn’t hurt all that much, now. It’s just a little graphic. So really, it’s not much of a concern to me or anyone else.”

“I beg to disagree. It’s certainly a concern to _me,_ and I’m willing to bet the only reason it’s not a concern for the rest of the knights and everyone else who cares about you is that they don’t know.” Arthur shifted and played with the neckerchief in his pocket a little more. “Honestly, you’re not alone. And people worry about you. When you—” Arthur choked on his words but pressed on. “When you disappeared, we went looking for you immediately. I barely had to say anything for people, some of them not even knights, to volunteer to go looking for you. You are beloved in this city, Merl—my friend. You saw the memorial service for you. It was filled! If there hadn’t been the invasion of the army, I know at least ten different people would’ve spoken at it.” He bumped Merlin’s shoulder with his own. “So stop dawdling and explain.”

Haltingly, Merlin eked out an explanation about the Questing Beast, and then Arthur’s near-death experience (“one of too many,” Merlin scolded), and then the complicated matter of deals with Nimueh on the Isle of the Blessed, using a highly dangerous magical artifact and poor judgment. Merlin, of course, did not introduce it as such. He hemmed and hawed for a few minutes, emphasizing his powerlessness in the situation because he was so terribly untrained while he coiled the quilt around his wrists like shackles. He detailed how he’d offered his life first (“that’s what my little speech was for,” Merlin said, too awkward for it to just be the truth coming to the light) but how his mother had been taken instead. Then, he said, Gaius had gone in the hope that Merlin wouldn’t, but Merlin went to the Isle anyway and… 

“Merlin,” Arthur prodded. Merlin jumped again. “Sorry. But you didn’t finish the story.”

“No,” Merlin said softly, “I suppose I didn’t. I’ll tell you, of course. To hide anything from you now would be impossible.” He cleared his throat and unwound the quilt, only to start winding it again. “I went to the Isle, and at the altar where I’d met Nimueh at the first time, Gaius was lying on the ground, dead. Nimueh came out of nowhere, telling me that I’d said I’d give _any_ life. I got angry since I hadn’t meant for anyone but me to get hurt and we yelled a bit and I cast one of the only attack spells I knew. Nimueh, being a high priestess and all, basically just laughed at me and dispelled it. Then she cast a fireball at me and caught me in the chest.”

He stopped, indicated his chest, and gave no sign of continuing.

Arthur waited for almost a minute before saying, “Then why is Gaius still alive? How are _you_ alive? That’s how you got that scar, but it’s not the end of the matter.”

“No, the ending is that lightning struck her and her life ended up being taken by the Cup of Life as payment. But that’s not interesting. So I wasn’t going to explain all that.” Merlin shrugged with a nonchalance he’d never mastered faking.

“That is _too_ interesting. Lightning? How?”

With a sigh, Merlin sank back into his pillows, looking even more tired than normal. “That was my doing. I hadn’t meant to, not really, but Gaius is practically family. I’m no master of the weather, I’ll say that first. But I have, according to my mother, been able to accurately predict it since I was little. She told me, too, that if I was especially happy, the sun would shine like she’d never seen it. It would do that in summer if I was angry, too, but only if it was lasting anger. When we were talking in the square during the battle, I called that storm. I didn’t mean to, but there it is.” He shut his mouth and stubbornly kept it shut.

They sat in a comfortable silence for a while before Merlin yawned and Arthur took his leave, rightly guessing his friend deserved sleep.

—

For the next three days, they avoided any discussion of scars at all and remained solely in the realm of Merlin’s physical recovery. He was allowed by Gaius to take extremely short, supervised walks which consisted of nothing but the commute from Merlin’s room to the dinner table. Gaius had also decided, at last, to give him something a bit more solid than chicken noodle soup and Merlin was growing more comfortable with his name again. To Arthur’s dismay, it seemed that he was only comfortable with it because Morgana had started talking to him about it, but Arthur knew that he wasn’t the friend Merlin needed right now. He certainly wasn’t the friend who’d brought him back to Camelot. Though Arthur had yet to figure out what had really happened while Merlin was away, he did know that he wasn’t there to help and Morgana had been. She was better for him, for now.

On the fourth day, Arthur arrived at Gaius’ chambers and was welcomed by screams. He barged through the door and stopped, aghast, at what he saw inside.

Merlin, dressed in only pants and a loose vest which left his chest exposed, held out his arms to Gaius, screaming and sobbing. Amidst some of his cries, Arthur could make out words like “my hands” and “pulled” but Merlin was far less coherent than Arthur had hoped. Gwen and Morgana hovered behind Merlin with dripping towels, held as if they were getting ready to squish a spider. Some of Gaius’ instruments in floated or whizzed about the room and lights danced through the air, only to pop when Merlin screeched again.

“My boy, please, please calm down,” Gaius reached for Merlin’s wrists to steady him, but Merlin howled, as if in pain, and scooted to a wall as quick as he could. Gaius looked altogether out of his depth and could do nothing but step back, his hands up in surrender. Morgana moved to comfort her friend, but Gaius shot her a dark look. She returned it, but stopped all the same. Gaius continued, “Merlin, you’re fine. Your hands are fine!”

This set off another round of sobbing and the wall took on more of Merlin’s weight. His arms dangled at his sides; indeed, they looked much the same as they always did, barring the unnatural limpness of his hands from the wrist to his fingertips.

“For goodness’ sake!” Morgana snapped. “Stop saying the name! It just makes things worse and you _know_ it does, so give it a rest! He’s not going to get suddenly better because you’re saying it. You have to be careful with it. And now isn’t an acceptable time to be saying it anyway, the state he’s in! My friend is having an attack and you’re telling him to _calm down_ and me to stay where I am. You’ve not helped him at all through these. You don’t know anything about it!” And with that, she moved to Merlin’s side and gently carried him the floor, murmuring quiet platitudes. She wrapped her towel around one of Merlin’s wrists and snapped her fingers for the one Gwen was holding. Gwen hustled to hand it to her, and Morgana wrapped it around the other wrist too.

Arthur sidled to Gwen’s side and muttered, “What’s going on?”

“Poor Mer’s having an attack, and Gaius wouldn’t listen to Ana about what worked before. Between you and me, I’m still going to make him some tea,” Gwen whispered back. She slipped over to Gaius’ kettle and set it over the fire, watching her friend anxiously.

Arthur frowned; clearly, Morgana had not come clean about her identity with Gwen. Still, Arthur thought that she probably deserved the chance to say it herself. He kept quiet.

“There, there,” Morgana said to Merlin, still holding him on the floor. His face was still streaked with tears, but his sobs had subsided to good old hyperventilation. “I can take care of your wrists. We know magic, don’t we, my friend? So even when you don’t have your hands, we can fix that. How do the towels look to you? Should we change them?”

“Th—they’re n—not blood—dy,” Merlin stammered out through heaves.

“That’s right!” Morgana said encouragingly. “They’re not bloody. Your hands have stopped bleeding. Do you think we should unwrap the towels to check?”

Merlin shook his head. He said something that only Morgana could hear.

“Then let’s just sit right here. I’ll keep you safe, my friend.” She rested her chin on the top of his head. “Do you remember the shack? With smooth rock just north of us, which you walked down to find me? Or the first meal we had, which you conjured? We kept each other safe, there, and I’ll keep you safe here as I did then.”

With a shudder, Merlin asked, “As safe as _all_ of it?”

“No, no no no,” Morgana replied. This seemed to be the right answer, since Merlin relaxed a little and closed his eyes. “Only as safe as the good parts.”

Arthur followed Gwen to the fireplace, where she was checking the water temperature. She’d gotten some loose tea from a box, and now she fidgeted the dry herbs and stared at the kettle. Arthur fetched a mug from a crowded shelf and handed it to her. “Why did Gaius ignore Ana?” he whispered.

Gwen shook her head and dumped the loose tea into the mug. “He doesn’t like her, maybe. I think part of it is that he wants Merlin to be back to normal by now and he’s not, but also he’s feeling guilty that he wasn’t around to help Merlin when this first happened. Ana was, and he feels a little bitter. He might even feel jealous or replaced. I don’t know precisely. He first blew her off by saying what she had to tell him wasn’t anything compared to being a trained physician, but that’s not typical of him. Ana’s not very happy with him either, if you didn’t notice.”

“Oh, I did,” Arthur answered. “They were really going at it.”

“They sure were.” Gwen sighed. “There’s something I’m not getting about the whole thing, but I don’t know what it is. At least Ana’s finally getting Mer to calm down.”

“How much do you know about what happened with our friend?” Arthur glanced back at Merlin, who Morgana was rocking back and forth. “I mean, he’s not in the best shape, I think you’ll agree. But what do you know about this thing? The pain and all.”

“I don’t know much, really.” Gwen took the kettle off the fire and poured out the water into the mug. Stirring it idly, she continued, “I know what you told me, of course, that the cause is that knife, whatever it was called. And I know that somehow, you’re responsible for it, though I’m fuzzy on how. He’s been that way since he got back, but I don’t know when he got it. I think Ana would know more.”

“What about what happened while he was away?”

“For that, I know a little. He said he left on his own because he was upset, but he doesn’t remember why anymore. He had a glamour on because he didn’t want to be stopped, but then he came back because he realized what a bad idea leaving was.” She tested the heat of the tea and held it up to show it to Morgana, who nodded. Gwen walked over and put the mug on the ground, giving Morgana a look as she did. Morgana shook her head slightly and Gwen shuffled back to the fireplace. “But then there was the fire in the marketplace and he was afraid to reveal himself. It’s messy with him. He’s escaped the pyre to go elsewhere and then wandered until he came across Ana and… I’m not sure what happened then. He’s only said a little and Ana’s said even less, probably because she doesn’t know everything.”

Arthur nodded and the two of them watched Morgana coax Merlin into drinking some of the tea. His hands were still wrapped in wet towels and he didn’t move his arms much, but he had stopped crying and his breathing had become more regular, which was practically a miracle considering how he’d been when Arthur had first come in. Gaius still hovered, looking a little put out, but he was roundly ignored. Morgana knew how to help Merlin and he didn’t. He’d have to deal with that.

After about half an hour, Merlin was asleep and Arthur carried him to the bed. The four of them—Arthur, Morgana, Gaius, and Gwen—settled around Gaius’ desk.

“I thought he was just in pain from the knife,” Arthur said. “Why did he think he didn’t have any hands?”

Morgana sighed and pulled her hair around one shoulder. “Well, when he had the first attack around me, he would have trouble focusing because of the pain. But now it looks more like he’s hallucinating. It started out with no input except the pain, I mean, and now he’ll see blood or smell something burning. It’s just gotten worse.”

“Can we do anything about that?” Arthur asked.

Morgana hesitated before saying, “Hell if I know, I just try to keep him safe while he’s in pain. I’m not exactly an expert in how to dispel curses like this.” She glared at Gaius. “And the person who supposedly _is_ an expert won’t even listen to me, who knows how to at least make him feel a little better.”

“Well maybe if you hadn’t tried to kill us all more than once, I’d trust your judgement more,” Gaius retorted.

“First, I haven’t done that in more than two years, so get over it. Second, I’m trying to solve this too! I care about Merlin a hell of a lot. He’s not what you’ve made him out to be, old man, and you have to adjust to who he is.” Her eyes grew sharp and she hunched her shoulders. “You encouraged him to hide, as you did me. That has no value! You repressed him, no matter what your reasoning was. He doesn’t know his limits now because he was never given room to explore them! You ruined that. Now, he’s exceeded it.”

“His mother hid it first,” Gaius pointed out, his arms crossed. Arthur tried to figure out how long Merlin had to have magic for his mother to hide it. “And I very much doubt Merlin has any limits.”

“He may not have had any in your time, but he does now! You have a static understanding of him and it hurt him. Also, when you think you can just control him and his being, you lose the right to treat him. You should have lost the right to treat me when you did what you did but—”

“Morgana, I have done all these things for the safety of you and Merlin—”

“I had a right to know!” Morgana roared, just as Gwen jumped.

“Wait, you’re Morgana?”

“Yes,” chorused Arthur, Morgana, and Gaius, all to varying degrees of stress.

“But that’s not important right now,” said Morgana, deftly moving the conversation along. “Gaius is awful to magic users. He didn’t do much of anything during the Purge, refused to inform newer sorcerers—ahem—of the truth, and holds grudges too long to be reasonable.” She looked to Arthur at this. “Gaius is a terrible adviser. His actions don’t make any sense and he doesn’t help people, or at least is selective in those he does help. So… I guess my point is that he’s not useful in helping Merlin. He doesn’t know how to, he’s not helpful anyway, and I don’t like him.”

“Well, how would you like to fix him?” Gaius snapped. “Do you know of another physician?”

“That’s not the point—”

“Maybe I can’t be fixed,” Merlin said quietly from the base of the stairs, drawing the gaze of the people at the table. He had his blanket wrapped around him. “I mean, I could be fixed. But I won’t do it and I won’t let it happen, so it’s not an option. I think… I think I might just be like this now.”

Gwen set her jaw. “Then we’ll make sure to care for you when you’re in pain.”

For Arthur, something clicked. “Perce told me that when you were talking to him and Gwaine in the tavern, you said you couldn’t die or you would have done it already. But the other option for you was to kill whoever was responsible and that person was—”

“You, Arthur,” said Morgana, confirming his greatest fears. It hadn’t felt quite real when Gwen had said it. “Intentional or not, it’s your fault that Merlin’s cursed.”

Arthur let his head drop to the table with a thunk and covered his ears with his hands. “I’m so sorry. I’m—I can’t say anything but sorry, Merlin.”

Merlin shrugged and sat down between Gwen and Arthur, still swathed in his blanket. “You didn’t know it was me. You didn’t know Martha had the blade of Cahrathis. I don’t think she knew she had it either, actually, so let’s drop it. I mean, _I_ don’t want to blame or kill you, so no big deal. As long as the four of you don’t kill each other and I deal with this chronic pain myself, I think we’ll all be done.” He bumped into Gwen’s shoulder. “Maybe not trying to set Morgana on fire with your eyes is a good start, dear.”

Gwen, who had indeed been glaring at Morgana, startled into a laugh. Hugging Merlin, she said, “How we lasted nine months without you, I’ll never know!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a lot of fun writing this! I got about 3k words of it written in the document for last chapter which is why I was able to churn it out so much quicker than the last one. This could alternatively be titled 'in which everyone is very sad for all of it.' Also, writing Elyan and Gwen is so much fun—I love making Elyan have faith in Gwen and her ability whereas in the show he doesn't (to my friend's recollection).
> 
> Thank you so much for reading! I know this has been going on a while now, but we're still going! I projected being done by last Christmas Break, but now I'll be lucky to finish this by this New Year. As always, please drop me kudos or comments if you like what I wrote! Love y'all.
> 
> Thanks again to my wonderful beta WolvaraAsh and her brilliant comments! She's on everything from instagram to Facebook to Tumblr, so go check her out! She's great.


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